Page 13 of My Deceitful Duchess
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Lottie shook with silent laughter, her face a study in mirth. “It certainlysoundslike an affair—the beginnings of one, at least.”
“I tell you, it isnot.” With an exaggerated pout, Jenny sank into her chair. “I grant you, it’s an odd sort of friendship—”
“Friendship!” Harriet choked on a laugh, and swallowed down a mouthful of brandy when Jenny shot her a glare.
“Well, it is not anaffair. He is far too young for such a thing,” Jenny said defensively, curling into her seat, and smoothing at the fall of her skirt. “Only seven and twenty.”
“And you’re practically a doddering old woman at—what? Thirty?” Lottie turned her attention to Harriet. “I don’t think I ever got a clear answer—have you?”
Harriet shook her head. “No; but I think dear Jenny has at least reached the stage of life where she might be a bitsensitiveto her age.”
Jenny cast a small pillow edged with gold cord at Harriet, smacking her clear in the face and eliciting a squawk of surprise. “I am one and thirty, you miserable wretch!”
“My, thatisa grand age,” Lottie said dryly. “You’d be practically robbing the cradle. How could you ever live with yourself?”
With a sound of distaste, Jenny reached for the open bottle of brandy set upon the table and poured herself a glass. “What would your husband say if he knew you were encouraging your business manager to have an affair with a younger man?” she asked of Lottie.
Lottie laughed, a loose red curl bobbing with the motion. “Probably,” she said, “that I’m losing my touch for scandal.”
Jenny tipped her nose in the air, affecting a haughty expression. “You’ll gain it back again if your husband continues to arrive in a marked carriage before nightfall,” she said. “Mr. Knight has got a clear view of the servants’ entrance from his townhouse. He says it is only a matter of time before someone else notices Clybourne sneaking in.”
“But it’sjustto do the accounting,” Lottie grumbled.
“Is it,chérie?” Jenny sipped her brandy, a knowing smile wreathing her face. “Perhaps you were unaware, but soundcarrieson the upper floors.” Rather too well, sometimes. “You cannot pull the wool over myeyes; Ilivehere.” And Lottie—for all that she owned Ambrosia—stayed over only on Saturday evenings, leaving the tedium of the account books to her husband while she, Jenny, and Harriet talked business. Or sometimes justtalked.
A scarlet blush rose to Lottie’s cheeks, which was eminently charming, since Jenny had seen her blush but rarely in all the years they had known one another. But then, until recently, Lottie had not, in fact, had much of a reasontoblush—though her husband was curing her of that. If ever a man could be said to be besotted with his wife, it was Clybourne, to his credit.
“Your Mr. Knight lives so close?” Harriet inquired.
“Indeed. Why, I could—” And she did, turning in her seat to flick back the curtains shielding the window. “Just there. You see? That house on the end, with the light in the upper window.” He was there even now it seemed. There was but an hour remaining until midnight. Perhaps he, too, had been counting down the time.
“It is…convenient,” Lottie allowed. “That he should live so close. Why, it’s hardly a stone’s throw between our doors.”
“I am not having an affair,” Jenny repeated.
“It’s quite discreet,” Harriet agreed. “Why, someone would have to be looking in exactly the right place at exactly the right time to catch you at it.”
“Have you not listened to a word I have said? There isn’t going to be an affair!”
“Hasthere been?” Lottie asked. “Ever? Because your husband has been gone for such a long time, and—well, itdoesseem something of a shame.” She ducked her head. “I mean to say, the rules are different outside of the aristocracy.”
She meant, largely, that Jenny did not have a reputation to ruin. Which was notpreciselytrue—it was only that that reputation had belonged to a girl who had married into a title. That girl had not existed for such a long time, and her reputation had been dragged through the mud already.Murdererhad attached itself toduchess, and she well knew which carried more weight.
But they didn’t know of that. Jenny had taken great pains to ensure that no one ever did.
“No—no affairs,” she said. But at the disappointment that settled over their faces, she at last admitted, “I might have had an—anassignationhere and there. Only rarely.”
With a squeal of shocked delight, Harriet dragged her chair closer. “I want to knoweverything,” she declared.
And as they crowded around her, theseladies, these unlikely friends she had somehow made, Jenny stole a glance at the clock and realized that likely it wasshewho would be late this evening.
Chapter Six
The last of the ladies had finally swept from the building, and Jenny had shrugged into a dark green pelisse which buttoned up to her throat. She was, in fact, some minutes late—but she did not doubt that Mr. Knight would be waiting still.
Just as she had waited for him. She wasn’t certain why she had done it, but shehadbeen confident that he would be along sooner or later. And so she had just—lingered a while. Just beyond the windows of the bakery, as if she were devoting her attention to the early morning signs of London rousing into a new day once again. But she hadwaited, and then, minutes later, he had come into sight, a hurry in his step as if he had feared he might have missed her. He had been surprised, she thought, to find her there still. Surprised—andpleased. And she had liked that, the little flush of pleasure that had spread over his face, highest upon his cheekbones, which were sharp and elegant. No one had ever looked at her quite like he did. As if she had been the high point of his entire day.
