Free When the Duke Returns by Eloisa James Page B

Fonthill,” he said, raising her hand to his lips.
    Not cold.
    His thick hair was tied back with a rose ribbon. He looked pale but healthy, presumably recovered from the duel that nearly killed him a few months before. She felt a small pulse of guilt: the duel had been won by her brother, after which he summarily married Villiers’s fiancée. Much though Jemma loved her new sister-in-law, she wished that the relation could have been won without injuring her favorite chess partner.
    â€œCome,” she said, leading him to the fire. “You’re still too thin, you know. Should you be upright?”
    â€œI could challenge you for that insult. I’ve knocked on death’s privy and came back to tell the tale, and you’re saying I’m too thin?”
    She grinned at him. “Do say that you came to play chess with me? It has been over a month since your fever broke, and that was the length of time for which your doctor issued an embargo on the game, was it not?”
    He sat opposite her. She leaned forward, began rearranging the pieces; his large hand came over hers. “Not chess,” he said.
    â€œNot—chess?” If not chess, what? She knew him to be a master at the game, just as she was. What did a master do, but play? “I thought your doctor decreed merely a month without chess; have I mistaken the date?”
    He leaned his head back against the chair. “I’ve gone off the game.”
    â€œImpossible!”
    â€œBelieve it. I missed it at first, of course. I dreamed of chess pieces, of moves, of games I played or thought I played. But then slowly the urge left me. I’ve decided to take another month at least before returning to the board.”
    â€œYou’re voluntarily eschewing chess?”
    His smile was a bit rueful. “I can tell you that it lengthens the days. How do people occupy themselves if they’re not chess players?”
    Jemma shook her head. “I’ve never known. So how is the party at Fonthill? Wait! Tell me about Harriet.” And she held her breath, not knowing if Villiers was aware that her friend Harriet was having an affaire with the owner of Fonthill, Lord Strange.
    â€œHappy,” he said, “with Strange. But I’m afraid the festivities are dimmed at the moment, as Strange’s daughter is quite gravely ill. I felt it was rude to tax the household with my presence under the circumstances, so I slipped away. I shall return in a day or two when, one hopes, the crisis will be over.”
    â€œOh dear! What sort of illness has she?”
    â€œA fever caused by a rat bite,” Villiers said. “But the girl is apparently quite strong, and the doctor is sanguine that all will be well. Harriet is spending her time in the sickroom.”
    â€œOf course Harriet would do that,” Jemma said. “It’s the affaire with Strange that I can’t imagine. Isidore said that the air scorched around them.”
    He raised an eyebrow. “I had no idea that the duchess was so poetic in her assessments. I gather Strange and Harriet are in love, a foreign emotion for me.” His eyes rested on Jemma. “And how are you?”
    She smiled faintly. “Not in love.”
    â€œBut not unhappy?”
    â€œNo.”
    He seemed to take some answer from that, perhaps to a question he wasn’t ready to put into words, for he nodded.
    â€œSo what of our match?” she asked, surprised by her own keen disappointment in his refusal of chess.
    â€œOne move a day…that match?”
    â€œYes, that match,” she said. “Do you have so many outstanding matches that you don’t remember? To bring it to your recollection, I have won one game, and you have won one game. That leaves one game to break the tie.”
    â€œI do remember now,” he said, watching her under his eyelids. “Let me see…if our match went to a third game, the last one was to be played blindfolded