When the Duke Returns by Eloisa James Page A

If you are bent on reform, Villiers, I shall take to wearing it regularly.”
    â€œReform…” he said. “Or not.”
    He had so much charm. He’d never wielded it on her like this before. When he smiled at her, it was almost like a caress.
    Suddenly she remembered his drawling voice saying that he gave her fair warning that he meant to have her.
    She almost shivered. Villiers was beautiful, depraved, tired…her husband’s enemy, though she never understood precisely why. She had offered herself to him last year and he had refused on the grounds of being Elijah’s oldest friend. And then he had changed his mind.
    Now Villiers apparently meant to woo her, if that word was appropriate for a married woman.
    She swallowed. She had promised Elijah that her scandals were over. She had come back from Paris to give her husband an heir. She felt dizzy.
    Villiers didn’t seem to notice her silence. Instead he took out a piece of paper. “Read this, Jemma.”
    She opened it. The letter was headed with the Duke of Cosway’s crest. “Isidore’s duke!”
    â€œHe’s back in the country.”
    â€œI knew that. Isidore is staying with me at the moment. He left her at a hotel, if you can countenance it, Villiers. A hotel! He left his duchess at a hotel and proceeded to drive to the country to see his mother.”
    â€œI find that story unsurprising, given my acquaintance with him. I actually played a game of chess with Cosway on the deck of some rapscallion prince’s boat,” Villiers said.
    â€œOn the Nile river?”
    â€œThe same hemisphere. If you can imagine, it was twilight and stiflingly hot, around seven years ago, Isuppose. I had decided for a number of reasons that I wished to travel to Arabia—”
    She shook her head. “No.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou wanted to play chess, of course. You had no redeeming reason for your journey, such as a love of exploration.”
    His smile was a wicked thing, the kind of smile that lured a woman. “You have me with a pawn, Jemma. I wanted to go to the Levant and play the chess masters there. But it was so damned uncomfortable!”
    â€œSand?”
    â€œHeat.” He stretched out an arm and looked at his lace. “I am a duke. It has been my charge since I was a mere boy, and while it has undoubtedly spoiled me, it has also marked me. I like to be clean, and I like to dress. Even in my bedchamber, if you can believe it, Jemma, I choose my garments with great care.”
    She had a sudden entertaining vision of Villiers wrapped in silk. Instinctively, she struck back. “You are so thin after your illness…I wonder that you do not need an entirely new wardrobe.”
    â€œIt is a cruel truth,” he sighed. “I seek to build myself up, of course. I am so hopelessly vain that I could never allow myself to visit a lady’s chamber until I am more fit.”
    Perhaps that was why there would be no third game in bed. It was to be a long campaign, she thought. The Duke of Villiers was setting himself out to entice her, before he allowed that last game to be played.
    Of all the men who had ever assayed that goal, he was the most dangerous.
    â€œSo what happened during the chess match with Cosway?” she said, wrenching her mind away from the question of Villiers’s allure.
    â€œOh, he beat me.”
    â€œThat must have been disconcerting.”
    â€œVery. I played like an idiot, and I knew why. It was just too bloody hot for an Englishman, though Cosway showed no signs of discomfort.”
    â€œWhat kind of man is he?”
    â€œImagine, if you will, a rather magnificent vessel, belonging to the Bey of Isfaheet. There we sat, with a table of tiger-striped wood between us, the chess pieces carved from the same board. The bishop rode on a rearing lion; the queen was an African princess; the rook was a camel.”
    â€œAnd you were there, in embroidery