Free An Affair Before Christmas by Eloisa James Page B

he was struggling against Finchley and Banderspit, who were holding him down to the bed.
    “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he roared. “Take your hands off me.”
    “Your Grace?” Finchley asked in a quavering voice that was unlike his usual ducal drawl. “Are you yourself again?”
    “I am always myself,” Villiers said promptly. “It may not be pleasant, but it’s the only choice I have.”
    Banderspit wiped his forehead. “We’ll have to do it immediately,” he said to Finchley.
    “Do what?”
    “Bleed you, Your Grace,” Banderspit replied.
    “Like hell,” Villiers said, suddenly remembering again that he had to go play chess with the duchess. “I must play my piece! I must play my piece.” He started to rise, only to find that Finchley was practically throwing himself onto his uninjured side.
    “Really,” Villiers said, rather coldly. “I have always shown you a measured amount of affection, Finchley. Do you keep to the same boundaries. I have no wish to share a bed.”
    “What are these pieces he’s talking about?” Banderspit asked Finchley.
    “Surely you know that His Grace is playing a chess match with the Duchess of Beaumont?” Finchley said.
    “I am,” Villiers interjected. “And she won the first game, dammit.”
    Finchley ignored him. “His Grace is anxious to continue their current game.”
    “One move a day,” Villiers said. “If we go to a third game, it’s in bed and blindfolded. Surely you can understand that I must win this game.” He grinned at the portly doctor. “If only to blindfold the duchess.”
    Banderspit looked appalled. “The Duchess of Beaumont ? Are you talking about the Duke of Beaumont’s wife?”
    “Not the dowager duchess,” Villiers put in. He was beginning to feel a most unpleasant spinning sensation. “I’d never bed her. Nor play her at chess either. Though the two activities aren’t so far apart as you might think.”
    “I can see that,” Banderspit said, snapping his mouth shut. “It is not for me to comment on the morality or immortality of your games, Your Grace. Though I cannot but comment that the Duke of Beaumont is a highly respected man in the Parliament, and one working night and day to bring about a change in government—to give En gland a government that will be respected and free of corruption!”
    Villiers blinked at him. “I like those red feathers you have coming from the back of your wig,” he said. “I’ve seen women doing that sort of thing with their wigs, but never a man.”
    Banderspit’s hand touched his wig briefly, and then he straightened up. “Fetch me my assistant,” he snapped at Finchley. “We must proceed at once.”



Chapter 11
    The Duke of Fletcher’s town house
April 30
    “I have listened to you for years, Mama,” Poppy said calmly. “Luce, please be careful with my enameled brushes. I’m very fond of them.”
    “You stop packing those things this minute,” Lady Flora snarled at Poppy’s maid. Luce froze. When Lady Flora commanded, people around her tended to stop short, as if a celestial command had been visited on them. “ We do not trot away from a husband, in some sort of ignominious retreat! I did not raise you for this!”
    “I know that, Mama,” Poppy said. “You raised me to be a duchess.”
    “A duchess is the wife to a duke,” Lady Flora said with clipped logic.
    “So I understand.”
    “I trust that is not an insolent tone I hear.”
    Poppy looked at her. From years of practice, she knew that her expression would appear open and inquiring, the epitome of innocence. “Of course not, Mama.”
    “A wife never leaves her husband. Not even if he’s as much of a dunce as your own father. I never left him.”
    Poppy nodded obediently. From what she understood, her mother had discovered that marriage did not agree with her approximately one hour after the ceremony, and she had always freely imparted her wisdom in that arena to her only daughter. “There’s