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Isidore picked up her gloves and carefully smoothed each finger. “I’m afraid that I was far too young and coarse. Your mother is a woman of great sensibility.”

He thought that was a nice way of saying the obvious: his mother was a raving lunatic, if not worse. “She didn’t used to be like this,” he offered. “I’m afraid the shock of my father’s death made things worse.”

“How can I help?”

“You can’t, but I do appreciate the offer.”

“Nonsense,” she said, standing up. “You can’t manage everything on your own, Simeon.” She looked around. “Have you even raised the question of redecorating with your mother?”

He rose, thinking about how casually she said his first name…finally. “My mother is having a difficult time adjusting to my presence. She is distressed by the fact that I am paying bills that she considers to have been presented by thieves. But after so much time has passed, I have no way of ascertaining whether the bills are fraudulent, so I am necessarily paying everything in full.”

She nodded. “Then I suppose my most pressing question is which bedchamber lies the farthest distance from a water closet?”

Of course she didn’t plan to stay in the master bedchamber. Of course not. He’d told her that he wanted to dissolve the marriage. What in the hell had he been thinking?

“I’ll ask the butler, shall I?” she said, turning away. The line of her back was straight and incredibly slender. And then her hoops…the way her skirt billowed as she walked made him long to follow the line of her back down to her hips with his hand. With a silent groan, he pushed open the door for Isidore and she swept through.

What would Honeydew make of the duchess’s request for a bedchamber far, far away? As it turned out, he was in entire sympathy.

“The dowager duchess has her own water closet, of course,” Simeon heard him telling Isidore. “And how she can abide the odor on damp days…”

“She’s probably used to it,” Isidore said, reasonably enough.

Back when Simeon was practicing meditation and first learning to control his body, it had been easy to maintain a manly discretion. When he arrived in Africa, and discovered running, he learned how to control bodily appetites such as hunger.

But England was endangering all his carefully erected barriers. His imperturbable, manly façade was shaken. He was enraged at his dead father for avoiding his obligations. He was irritated by his mother. And worst of all, he was riveted by lust for his wife. If the truth be told, lust was absorbing at least half of his cognitive powers at any given moment, even given that he’d had so little sleep.

He could hear Valamksepa in his mind’s ear, intoning that no man need be at the behest of his emotions, and certainly not of his body. The memory sounded like water running over pebbles a long way away.

Isidore put her hand on his sleeve and her touch sent a pulse of fire to his loin. “Simeon, is Godfrey away at school? He was just a toddler when I last saw him. He must be in long pants by now.”

Simeon gave her a wry smile. “He’s thirteen and nearly as tall as I am. You’ll meet him tonight.”

She gasped. “Thirteen?”

“I need to find him a tutor. My mother deemed Eton too expensive and yet she never hired a proper tutor. Luckily, he seems very bright and has taught himself, rather eclectically, from my father’s library.”

“Beaumont is sure to know an appropriate young man. Godfrey taught himself?”

Another pulse of shame. He should have been here, making certain that his brother was properly raised. But Simeon made sure his face was impassive. It was weakness to admit weakness. “He will quickly catch up to his peers.”

Isidore gave him a quizzical look, but turned away to speak to Honeydew. “I do not travel lightly,” she said. “Several carriages are following more slowly with my clothing.”

When Honeydew took her upstairs to explore the most palatable bedchamber—from an olfactory point of view—Simeon returned to his study.

The last thing he wanted to do was be in the same room with Isidore and a bed.

Chapter Thirteen

Revels House

February 29, 1784

Isidore had never selected a room on this basis before: she and Honeydew entered each room and then sniffed. But the stench was pervasive. It followed them from room to room like a friendly dog.

She was beginning to wonder if there was an inn within ready distance when Honeydew suddenly said, “Perhaps the Dower House, Your Grace. Would you consider it? I’m afraid it hasn’t been opened or aired, but it’s a lovely little house.”

“Honeydew, I will consider any place that was not refurbished to include a water closet.”