When the Duke Returns by Eloisa James Page B

her teeth and then put her hand in his.
    The shock of heat she felt was entirely unreasonable.

Chapter Ten
    65 Blackfriars Street
February 27, 1784
    T hey were before a row of houses, in a part of London Simeon didn’t know. Not that he really knew London. “Doesn’t your mantua-maker own a shop?” he asked. The groomsman was standing at the door of a small house.
    â€œWe are visiting Signora Angelico’s studio, Cosway,” Isidore told him. “This is a great honor, extended only to her countrywomen, so please try to behave yourself.”
    â€œCouldn’t you call me by my given name?”
    â€œIt’s not polite.”
    He ignored that. “My name is Simeon. It’s a good, workable name and I thank God I didn’t end up Godfrey, like my poor brother.”
    â€œWe’re not supposed to call each other by given names.”
    â€œI already call you Isidore.”
    â€œI didn’t give you permission to do so!”
    â€œEvery time you call me Cosway, it sounds like cock to me,” he said thoughtfully. “Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Maybe you should go right on calling me Cosway, and I’ll just—”
    Isidore laughed. “Fine. Simeon.”
    Signora Angelico worked in a large open room on the bottom floor. The first thing Simeon saw were the open shelves that lined the room. Rolled cloth—silk, satin, taffeta—was stacked to the topmost level. It reminded him of souks in Morocco. The colors glowed coyly from the ends of the rolls, deep red silk, lilac shot with silver, the clear yellow of buttercups in early spring. Below the cloth were boxes, filled to the brim and spilling forth their contents: thread, buttons, yards and yards of ribbon. Everywhere there was lace. Lace hanging from wooden poles, lace thrown into piles, thin rivulets of lace and fatter rivers of it heaped on the tables that scattered the room.
    Isidore had walked directly into the room, while Simeon paused on the threshold. Now she was dropping a deep curtsy before a woman in late middle age, with a deliciously curvy figure. The mantua-maker was kissing Isidore energetically on both cheeks, calling her bella.
    Then they both turned and looked at him.
    Simeon walked forward and swept into a flourishing bow. “Duke,” Isidore said, “may I present Signora Angelico?”
    â€œ Onorato di conoscerla, signora.”
    Isidore raised an eyebrow. “I had no idea you spoke Italian.”
    â€œI don’t really, but I can improvise from Portuguese.” He turned back to Signora Angelico who was declaring herself felicissima to encounter, finally, the marito of her darling little duchess, whom she had loved since the moment she first saw her.
    â€œSignora Angelico made gowns for my aunt for many years,” Isidore explained.
    â€œYour aunt?”
    â€œI lived with my aunt after we married.”
    â€œOf course! Your aunt.”
    â€œAugustina Del’Fino,” Isidore filled in.
    So he didn’t know every bit of information about what she’d been doing for the last eight years since they married…well, perhaps it was more than eight years.
    Signora Angelico turned away, her hands in the air, scattering her seamstresses in all directions.
    â€œHow long have we been married?” Simeon inquired.
    Isidore glanced at him. She would make an excellent politician; she had a way of putting a fellow in his place with nothing more than a raised eyebrow. “Don’t you remember?”
    â€œWhy would I ask if I did?” he said, surprised.
    â€œWe were engaged in June, 1765, married by proxy in June, 1773.”
    â€œOf course. You said you were twelve when we actually married.”
    Signora Angelico was gesticulating madly from the other side of the room.
    â€œAnd you were eighteen.”
    â€œI was in India. How long did you live with my mother?”
    â€œA matter of a few months. I’m afraid that we were