“No,” Povy said repressively.
That seemed to answer that, so Jem continued down the stairs.
Fifteen minutes later he entered the small Rose Salon without being announced, paused for a moment to survey his visitors, and then swore under his breath. Povy was an intelligent, canny miracle and he should never have doubted him.
There was only one word for Mr. Cope: adorable. He had curly brown hair, pulled into a simple pigtail at his neck, with just a dusting of powder. He wore a beautiful coat; he could hardly be Villiers’s relative without exhibiting a fine sense of style. But his eyes gave him away. They were exquisite, and not just because of their color and a fringe of lash that could have graced a princess. They were—fresh.
Jem shot Villiers a look through narrowed eyes. There was something peculiar about this. For one thing, Villiers wasn’t sleeping with the woman he’d dragged along with him, the supposed Duchess of Cosway, the duchess who didn’t exist. She was a pretty piece, all right, as glittering and sultry as a peacock, but Villiers was talking to her without the faintest desire in his eye.
On the other hand, Jem wasn’t sure that Villiers could feel desire for anyone, not if he were as ill as he looked. The man had to have lost three stone.
Mr. Cope was standing close to Villiers, with his eyes as round as saucers, staring at a statue Jem had shipped from Crete on an impulse. That kiss between Mars and Venus was on the risqué side. Of course, they were married (mythologically speaking). But the whole question of marital virtue was somewhat offset by the fact that Mars was wearing a helmet—but nothing else.
“Villiers,” Jem said, walking forward.
The duke turned around and swept him a bow. Even gaunt as Villiers was, he looked every inch of duke.
“We’d better get you in bed,” Jem said by way of greeting. He’d heard Villiers was ill, but hadn’t realized how close he came to death. It gave him a queer feeling, so Jem said roughly, “You look like hell.”
“I’m better than I was. But I’m not supposed to play chess, so I’m relying on you and your dubious charms to entertain me, Strange.”
“You’ll have to entertain yourself,” Jem said, turning to the so-called duchess and bowing. “Good morning, Your Grace.”
Instantly he saw that she was a duchess. A rather gaudy one, in an Italian style, but he knew instantly that he was looking at the Duchess of Cosway. Or perhaps the future Duchess of Cosway was the proper terminology.
It was a miracle that she managed to curtsy, given that her traveling dress appeared to have been sewed onto her body.
“You do me too much honor,” Jem said with patent insincerity. This was not the sort of guest he enjoyed. He disliked the way that titles, especially the higher-up ones, seemed to give their holders the right to behave like despicable fools. She would be fussy, and shocked, and likely stamp out in high dudgeon in a day or so.
But then she smiled at him, a lush armful of warm Italian skin and sweet ruby mouth, and he changed his mind. There was something wicked about that mouth, a hint of a kiss or a kiss-to-be-taken hanging in the corner.
She may be a virgin, but she didn’t look shockable.
Mr. Cope, on the other hand, was so new-fledged that he bobbed his bow like a schoolboy.
Jem was rarely shocked by life, but he was conscious of a little surprise now. In the course of throwing his house open to anyone he (and Povy) deemed interesting, he had seen all sorts of desire. Very little of it interested him—and none of it surprised him.
But he was surprised now. Surprised by a little surge of interest in himself—shamefully—for Mr. Cope. For a stripling with big eyes and not even a sign of a beard. For a male. For God’s sake, Jem thought with disgust. If this is getting old, I want nothing to do with it.
And he made a mental note to stay far away from Cope.
“Just how old is that youth you’ve brought along?” he managed to ask Villiers sotto voce, a few moments later.
“Twenty-two,” Villiers said. “I know he looks like a cherub, but don’t be fooled, Strange.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s a hardened reprobate. Plays the innocent because it pulls the ladies. Wait til you see him with them. They fall over him screaming. Fall backwards, really. He’s a nice lad, though, and doesn’t take advantage.”
“Try another one,” Jem said, his voice hardening. “This house may be a byword, Villiers, but I’ll thank you to pack him up and send him home to his mother.”
Villiers’s eyes narrowed dangerously, but Jem had never backed down to any duke’s desires, and he wouldn’t now. Especially to one of the few men in England whom he thought of as being of his own weight intellectually.
“I dislike the idea that my house is being treated as some sort of proving ground for innocents.”
There was a thread of anger—and an odd strain of amusement—in Villiers’s voice. “All right, he’s not a rakehell. Far from it. But he is twenty-two. And he’s got as much right as anyone else to a full life. Surely you’d be the first to say that?”
“What do you mean? What’s his life been up til now?”
“His mother is eccentric,” Villiers said. “She lives in the country and has kept him close by her side.”
Jem glanced over at Cope. He was standing with the duchess as they examined the intertwined bodies of Venus and Mars. The marble cleverly blended into one piece during the crucial encounter. The corner of his mouth quirked as he saw Mr. Cope point to the relevant spot.
Villiers followed his gaze. “He’s a willing learner.”
“Did you rescue him?”
“Something of the sort. I promised him a look at life that wouldn’t hurt him. He’s twenty-two, and—I hardly need to say it—a virgin. I could have taken him to a brothel in London, but I didn’t want that dewy look of his dashed when he had to hand over coins to the lass of his choice.”
Jem didn’t like the reasoning. Yet he couldn’t deny but that it made sense. If he had a son, he wouldn’t want him in a brothel either.
“The same diseases are to be found here as elsewhere,” he said, a warning in his voice.
“Then I’ll trust you to steer him the right direction, Strange.” Villiers made a sour face. “The trip took more out of me than I expected. My Scottish devil of a doctor told me not to travel, but I overruled him. And now I think he was likely right.”
Villiers’s face was a pallid white, with deep bruises under his eyes. Jem jerked his head at Povy. “You’ll stay in bed,” he said, “and I’ll watch over your fledgling. And what of that duchess? Or should I say, half-duchess? Am I to watch over her as well?”
Villiers gave him a faint smile. “You might want to warn your guests she’s in the house.”
“A wild one?”
“Jemma had a Twelfth Night party—do you know the Duchess of Beaumont?”
“I met her once. Dared her to come visit, but she didn’t have the backbone.”
“Or perhaps the desire,” Villiers said mildly. “Not everyone thinks that an invitation to your house is a ticket to Paradise, you know.”
“I’m glad you succumbed.” And he meant it.