“It is lovely!” Margery exclaimed. “Wherever did you find it? I don’t think there is anything like it in the village, or even in Edinburgh!”
“I found it the last time we were in London,” He lied. She could tell that he was lying because there was an odd quirk to his left eyebrow. It was the only way you could tell, although he lied all the time. It was one of his greatest charms.Hetold stories and he fully expected those around him to tell them, too. It was a great game withHim.
She turned it over in her hands. It looked old. There was a strange translucency to the pottery, a lightness as if it were partially made of glass. The main part of the vessel was a dark brown. It was inlaid with bright white figures in an odd metal. The scene showed a goddess and a god pursuing each other around the bottle. She giggled at the sight of it.
The inlay left little white smudges on her fingers. She started to lick it off, but He caught her hand and wiped it clean with his handkerchief. “That is for later, dear one. Have a little patience.”
“Will I like it?” Margery asked.
“You will like it excessively,” he said. “Come, my sweet and lovely Duchess, my queen, my empress, and let me show you how to rule me, your loyal subject.”
“You exalt me,” she said.
“No day better to do it,” he replied. “Soon all shall be as we wish. The wheels have already been set in motion.”
“They have? Will I be able to attend the London Season?”
“Of that, I am not sure, but do not fret. I have it on the best authority that the London Season will be sadly flat this year.”
“Oh? Why is that?”
“Because the most beautiful flower of the ton will not be there. Without you, it will only be full of old men chewing over policies that only ensure that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, while the young men are fed to the war machine.”
Margery shivered. “That sounds dreadful.”
“It is dreadful. So come, let us celebrate our own Season. I promise you will never have felt better.” He carefully measured out a few drops of the contents of the bottle into a spoon. “Take your medicine, dear Margery.”
Obediently as a baby bird, she opened her mouth and he tipped it in. “Gah! That is vile!” she said, shuddering.
He kissed her gently. “There, does that take away the nasty taste? Soon, you will not mind it at all.”
He picked her up as if she were a child and laid her on the bed. He then began caressing her and set about a ritual that soon had her moaning with pleasure. “I am a woman made of flowers,” she said.
“Yes, my love, you certainly are,” he agreed. “And I am the bumble bee come to steal your sweetness.” Then he did something he had rarely done with her before. She knew it was a thing that she had not desired, and at first it hurt. Then the hurt turned into an unbearable pleasure that burst into brilliant colors all around her.
All the same, she cried afterward. But he held her and soothed her. “Shh, shh, my sweet one, my beautiful lovely wife. You should never have been subjected to this, but your father would never have accepted me.”
“I know, Roddy. Did we do a bad thing to be married in secret? And then I let them make me say vows with Jonathan. Too many vows. All I wanted was a cottage with you. Although it was very pleasant to be a Duchess and go to parties and balls. Will we still be able to do that?”
“If everything happens as I have planned, you will be able to attend every party and every ball that your heart desires.”
“Have you put a baby in me, Roddy?”
“I hope so, my sweet, for it is the only way that you will be able to inherit from your Duke. The only thing that remains is to find a way to make him think that it is his, or at the very least to make it impossible for him to deny it.”
Margery sniffled against his shoulder. Her emotions were all in a turmoil. “I will die in childbirth. It will all be for nothing. But I am not sorry to be with you, my sweet shadow man.”
He stroked her back, sending shivers down it, little echoes of the pleasure they had just shared. “And I am not sorry to be with you. We shall make sure that you live, my darling, and the baby, too. For it is the babe who will inherit. As a woman, you would have only your widow’s portion, and perhaps not even that if the Crown wants the estate.”
“And if the babe lives, but I do not? With Jonathan gone, this babe will be an orphan. You will not be able to claim him.”
“If that should come to pass, I will have put a cuckoo in a Dukeling’s nest. Is that not a fine joke on the world?”
“I’m not sure, especially since I won’t be able to enjoy it.”
“Don’t worry, love. Medical science has come a long way since your mother gave birth. I will not allow anything to happen to you.”
Margery rested her forehead against his shoulder, and willed herself to believe his words. Then the medicine took its hold upon her, and she slept. And awoke alone as she always did, because it would not do for her real husband to be found in bed with her.
