Page 54 of A Tale of Two Dukes

‘And to think you once tempted me to lecture you about patriotism,’ Viola said ruefully when she had heard all her husband could think of to tell her. She had been worried by his unexpectedly long absence, and greatly relieved to see him back, albeit exhausted and hungry.

‘But you refused to be drawn,’ he replied with a smile. ‘You said with some truth that there is little to choose between one side and another. I was grateful for your cynical attitude at the time, of course, since you thought me a French spy and were still prepared to take me as your husband.’

Viola had been musing on this subject, and was glad to have an opportunity to discuss it.

‘You don’t believe that, though, Richard – that the French and the Allies are as bad as each other.

I can’t credit that you think so, even if others do.

You’ve given your youth to your side, and it’s not even as though you were a soldier and were paid to do it, and received honour and praise and a fine gold-laced uniform.

Nobody’s been throwing flowers at you in the streets, or giving you parades and prizes.

Indeed, you’ve had nothing but scorn and opprobrium from almost everyone till now.

You must have had strong private reasons for your actions, though you have never told me them.

Can you really say that the Regent is more worthy of respect than Bonaparte?

You’ve just described him as a buffoon, a man without shame or conscience, hanging on the coat-tails of better men, and men who have risked their lives while he’s sat safe at home, bankrupting with his extravagance a country in which poor people are still going hungry. ’

‘It’s perfectly true, my love. His private life bears no examination, he has let down everyone who has ever trusted him, has treated his wives and parents abominably, and is a spendthrift on a hideous scale, with no thought for the sufferings of others.

I fully admit that he is a fool and worse, but he’s not a tyrant.

His father, when he was in his right mind, was a good man and a conscientious king, and both of them, for all their varying faults, are checked in their behaviour by Parliament, our true rulers.

Rulers who can be replaced, at the will of the people. ’

What he said was true – as far as it went.

‘Yes, in theory, but Parliament is not fairly elected, since most men – and all women – have no say in the matter. You could not vote, could you, before you inherited your aunt’s estate?

And so you had no voice at all in how the country is run, just as I don’t, just as almost no one does.

The will of the people counts for very little, you must allow. ’

‘I do allow it, though with pain. We must hope that change is coming, as I believe it is. I am no advocate of our current corrupt way of managing things, and I will work for reform in the new situation I have been given.’

He broke off, as if searching for words to explain what he believed.

‘Viola, Bonaparte has ravaged a whole continent in pursuit of his own deranged personal ambition. It is impossible even to begin to count the millions who have died directly because of him. I know many people of my age have grown up with revolutionary sympathies – but if he ever held them, which I doubt, he betrayed them years ago, and thinks only of his own advantage, and that of his damn bloodsucking family. Slavery was outlawed – he brought it back. Women gained some freedom, which they themselves had fought and died for – he took it away.’

Richard smiled rather wryly. ‘The last person I debated such matters with was Lesmire. The man was a pure fanatic. He would have sacrificed his own wife and children without blinking for his idol – clamoured to do it, lit a fire at their feet and thrown kindling onto it with enthusiasm, crying, “ Vive l’empereur” all the while.

Such people are dangerous, and those who encourage them for their own profit are more dangerous still.

George is a perfumed, coddled booby, no doubt, but we have some freedom to say so.

Nobody is trying to make a god of him. Nobody will worship him when he is dead, and use him to justify yet more unspeakable crimes. ’

She was astonished to see him so passionate.

‘Well, I’m not disagreeing with you. I daresay Julius Caesar was a monster too, in much the same mould, and yet he is still revered and emulated, as you say.

It is also true that war is a dirty business, and unleashes the worst in men on both sides, and it will always be the innocent and the weak who suffer for it.

I had no idea that you felt so strongly, though I should have realised that something powerful motivated you to make the choices you have made.

I see now that I have married a politician and a philosopher. ’

He took her in his arms. ‘I cannot make such grand claims. I was a rootless boy with no prospects and I found myself in humble employment in order to live – but then after a little while, I was approached to engage in clandestine work, in America at first and then France later, and undertook it for the excitement as much as anything else. I found I was good at it, and any hopes I might have had for another sort of life were lost when I lost you. My convictions, if they are convictions, were developed later, when I saw with my own eyes the ruin that the glorious French empire has brought with it. And sometimes, I wonder if my hopes will stand up to scrutiny when we see what victory looks like, and when thousands and thousands of hardened fighting men are told we have no use for their services any more, but no jobs to give them either, and they must steal or starve. But that is a worry for the future.’

She looked up at him, frowning, and he said, with his usual quick understanding of what she was thinking even though she hadn’t spoken of it, ‘Don’t be worrying that I am sacrificing my principles for you and for the boys because I went to see the old fool and listened to his ramblings with patience.

I am not. I am done with my previous manner of existence, and need a new one.

It’s true that my new life would be meaningless if it did not have you in it, but I would be doing this even without you.

Our system is bad, and its figurehead a disgrace, but others I have seen are worse.

I will sit in the House of Lords and do what good I can there – and for that to happen to any purpose, for me to make allies as I must, my reputation has to be restored. ’

He pulled her down onto the sofa and kissed her till she was breathless.

But after a while, he lay back and said teasingly, ‘Kissing is all very well, of course, but I shall require you – and the boys, rascals that they are – to treat me with a great deal of respect and deference now that I am a duke, you know.’

‘You can’t be a duke yet,’ she replied, beginning to unfasten his cravat and unwind it from about his neck. ‘The Regent can’t just have said, “You’re a duke now, Ventris, what d’you think of that, eh?” and so you are. There must be some sort of ceremony, which I note you have not mentioned.’

‘I don’t know – there wasn’t when I became Baron Ventris, but then that was by inheritance, which I suppose is different.

I was half-expecting him to get out some great sword of state and invest me with it on the spot, and likely cut off my head in the process, since he can hardly be used to wielding weapons. ’

‘Save his own famous sword of state, I suppose,’ she said outrageously.

‘I believe that Lady Hertford handles that, minx,’ he replied in the same tone. ‘But no swords were unsheathed on this occasion, to my relief, and I didn’t think to ask if there must be some ceremonial event at a later date. I was just grateful to escape and come home to you.’

‘How remiss of you, your grace,’ she murmured, moving to straddle his lap so that she could the better undo his shirt and slip her hands inside it.

‘Well, I am still learning how to go on, you know, in my new exalted position. You will have to teach me. How does it feel to be a duchess again, Viola?’ he asked her, setting his hands firmly about her waist, which seemed a good idea to her, while she still had one.

‘Better,’ she said. ‘Much better this time.’

‘Good.’ He traced his lips down her throat, just brushing her skin and making her shiver.

And then he nipped it with his teeth, where her neck met her shoulder, and she arched her back in anticipation of the pleasure to come, delighting in the feeling of his hard thighs under hers.

‘You will go down in history as a rare phenomenon – one of those few women who has married two dukes.’

‘I am a rare phenomenon,’ she told him seriously, unbuttoning his black silk breeches as he freed her breasts from her low-cut gown and bent his head to kiss them with rapt attention as she pressed herself against him. ‘And I might have married two dukes, but I only ever loved one.’

‘And I always loved you, when you were a duchess, when you were not, and now that you are again. It makes no difference to me.’

‘I think it should,’ she told him, her hands upon his sword of state, which was a weapon that might make any woman lose her head when she saw it. ‘Because I am your duchess.’

‘But you always were.’