Private Arrangements (28 page)

Gigi saw Freddie to the train station on Monday morning. She managed to have an agreeable time, conversing more frankly, affectionately, and easily with him than she'd been able to do in a long time. She even enjoyed her guests once she took the plunge and informed them that, though she esteemed Freddie more than ever, she had deemed it prudent to release him from his commitment.

When she arrived home, Goodman informed her that she had a caller waiting. “A Mr. Addleshaw from Addleshaw, Pearce and Company is here to see you, milady. I have him in the library.”

Addleshaw, Pearce & Co. were Camden's solicitors. What was a senior partner doing paying her a visit far from the city?

Addleshaw was in his early fifties, shortish and natty in his tweed suit. He smiled as Gigi entered the library— not the tight, cautious smile she'd have expected from a lawyer but the delighted grin of a long-lost friend.

“My lady Tremaine.” He acknowledged her with a neat bow.

“Mr. Addleshaw. What brought you all the way to Bedfordshire?”

“Business, I fear. Though I confess, your ladyship, I've wanted to meet you in person ever since Mr. Berwald first contacted us with regard to the late Duke of Fairford.”

Of course. How could she have forgotten? She had relentlessly driven Mr. Berwald, her head solicitor, against this very same Mr. Addleshaw, who had defended his client's interests with the ferocity of a mother lion.

She smiled. “Am I quite as fearsome in person?”

He didn't answer her question directly. “When Lord Tremaine informed me that he would marry you by special license, I'd half-expected it. Unlike his late cousin, however, he was all but counting the days. I can see the reason now.”

Ah, the sweet yesteryear. Her heart ached anew. She indicated a chair. “Please, have a seat.”

Addleshaw produced a rectangular box from his briefcase and pushed it across the desk. The scent of rosewood, sweet and heady, wafted to her nostrils. “This came to our office last week, by special courier. I ask that you please open it and verify that the contents have not been disturbed during the transit and my safe-keeping.”

What could Camden possibly want to give her? She drew a complete blank. Inside the wooden box lay a velvet jewelry case. She lifted its lid and lost her breath.

Against a bed of cream satin sparkled a magnificent necklace, the chain of it done entirely in diamonds, one teardrop loop nestled against the next. Seven rubies, each surrounded by diamonds, dangled from the necklace, the smallest two the size of her thumbnails, the largest one at the center bigger than a quail's egg. There were also two matching earbobs, each with a ruby as big as the pad of her index finger.

She'd seen plenty of parure in her life. She owned a few gorgeous pieces herself. But even she rarely came across a set with such nerve and audacity. It would take a superbly self-assured woman to subsume its glitter in her own radiance, to not become a mere accessory to the necklace's splendor and costliness.

There was a note, undated and unsigned, in Camden's slanted hand.
The piano arrived in one piece, as out of tune as ever. Civility demands a return gift. I'd bought the necklace in Copenhagen. You might as well have it.

In Copenhagen. He'd bought it for
her.

“Looks like everything is here,” she mumbled.

“Very good, ma'am,” said Addleshaw. “I am also to inform you that you may, at your pleasure, repetition for divorce. Lord Tremaine has instructed us to stand aside and do nothing to impede its progress. The divorce should be a fairly straightforward legal matter at this point, as you have no children and no entanglement of properties that isn't already clearly spelled out in your wedding contract.”

For a moment, her heart stopped beating. “He has withdrawn all objections?”

“Yes, ma'am, Lord Tremaine stated his assent in a letter addressed to myself. I have brought the letter, if your ladyship would like to read it.”

“No,” she said quickly. Much too quickly. “That will not be necessary. Your word is good enough.”

She rose. The lawyer got to his feet also. “Thank you, ma'am. There is, however, one last small matter.”

Gigi glanced at him, surprised. She thought their interview concluded already. “Yes, Mr. Addleshaw?”

“Lord Tremaine requests that you return to him one small item, a ring with filigree gold work and an insignificant sapphire.”

She froze. Addleshaw had described her engagement ring.

“I shall have to search for it,” she said.

Addleshaw bowed. “Allow me to take leave of you now, Lady Tremaine.”

The small sapphire glittered mutedly as Gigi turned the ring between her fingers. Camden had bought it for her. And she'd been floored. Not by the ring itself, but by him, by the overwhelming symbolic meaning of the gesture.
He loved her.

Her wedding ring she'd donated long ago to the Charity for the Houseless Poor, but this ring she'd kept—out of sight, in a box that also contained the desiccated remains of all the flowers he'd ever brought her and a faded length of blue ribbon that had once been a sweet, crushed bow on Croesus.

Now he desired the ring back. Why revisit the most painfully sweet part of their past now? Why not demand that Croesus be returned too while the poor old dog still had a breath left?

Was he deliberately trying to provoke her?

But what if he wasn't provoking her? What if he really just wanted the ring back? Well, then. He'd still get what he wanted. He only had to fish it out of her—

She clamped a hand to her mouth. It was hardly the most sexually shocking thought she'd entertained in her life. What astounded her was the waywardness and mischief of it, all ebullient optimism when she'd believed herself morose and listless.

She loved him. If she'd been willing to violate the principles of decency in her youth, why couldn't she do something that was perfectly within the bounds of good behavior—namely, showing up naked on his bed? Only think of the endless sexual possibilities.

She tittered a little into her hands. She was a naughty woman, assuredly. And Camden had adored her for it.

There. Nothing more to be said for it. She was going to New York City. And she would not return until she could inform Mrs. Rowland that she was at last going to be a grandmother.

Chapter Twenty-seven

2 September 1893

V
ictoria's weekly tea with the duke happened only twice. After that, it became two times a week. For a week and half. Toward the end of that particular week, somehow they ended up in animated conversation by the fence of her front garden as he walked past her cottage. Then he invited her to come along with him, she accepted, and they'd shared the walk each day thereafter.

There were advantages to being an almost hag, Victoria reflected. In her youth she'd been fervently concerned that everyone should perceive her perfection. She mouthed only the most agreeable platitudes and ventured not a single opinion that wasn't as bland as porridge for the invalid.

Amazing what changes thirty more years of life brought about in a woman. Why, only the day before, as they toured her private garden, she'd declared His Grace blind for not seeing that the friendship between Achilles and Patrocles was more than friendship—what man would be so grieved by a mere friend's passing that he'd refuse to let the corpse go to the funeral pyre?

He, on the other hand, dug in his heels and defended the thesis of friendship. Romantic love as Western civilization currently understood it did not emerge until the Middle Ages. Who was to say that masculine friendship, in an epoch before a man saw home and hearth as the anchor of his existence, couldn't have been deeper and more emotional?

Today, on a short stroll through his gardens, they'd disagreed on a host of topics already, from the merits of the metric system to the merits of George Bernard Shaw. The duke felt no compunction in calling a few of her opinions preposterous. She, to her own pleasant surprise, gave no quarter and labeled some of his views as downright asinine, in exactly so many words, to his face.

“I've never heard so many contrary opinions in my entire life,” he remarked as they neared the house.

“Alas,” she teased him, “what a sheltered life you've led, sir.”

He looked startled for a moment. “A sheltered life? I suppose you aren't entirely incorrect. But still, shouldn't a genteelly raised woman such as yourself at least make an effort to agree with me?”

“Only if I'm out to ensnare you, Your Grace.”

“You are not?” He turned a baleful gaze on her.

She batted her eyelashes. “Why would I want to put up with a man as disagreeable as yourself when I already have all the advantages of wealth
and
a future duke for a son-in-law?”

“For now.”

“Oh, have you not heard, then? My daughter has released Lord Frederick from their engagement. Furthermore, she departed this morning on the
Lucania
for New York City, where her husband resides.”

“And that has slaked your blood thirst for a duke of your own?”

“Temporarily,” she said modestly.

He harrumphed. The duke had a soft spot for all things ludicrous. Between the two of them, her not-quite hunting of him had become an ongoing joke.

She smiled. Despite his dissolute past, his ever-present hauteur, and his great fondness for intimidating lesser mortals, he'd turned out to be quite a decent chap. His attention flattered, but the gratification extended far beyond the stroking of her vanity. She took genuine pleasure in his company, in the thoughtful, honorable man he had made of himself.

Inside the house, the tea service had been set out in the south parlor, with a footman ceremonially warming the teapot. A fire crackled in the grate, shedding a golden tinge on the walls.

“How remiss of me, Your Grace,” she said as the servants retreated. “I have been so busy informing you of your intellectual shortcomings that I forgot to wish you a happy birthday.”

“You and two hundred of my closest friends,” he said wryly. “I used to throw a birthday bacchanal for myself every year, right here at Ludlow Court.”

“Do you miss a good bacchanal?” How could one not, she thought? She'd never had one and sometimes she still missed it.

“Occasionally. But I don't miss the aftermath. The wallpaper in this particular room had to be changed six times in eleven years.”

She glanced at the walls. The damask wall covering was of a different pattern—acanthus rather than fleur-de-lis—but care had been taken to find a near exact match of the rich celadon green background she remembered, so that the room remained much as it was thirty years ago when she'd come for tea and wild dreams. “It's remarkable how little the wallpaper has changed, for all that.”

“Trust me, it didn't look anything like this during my more debauched days. The wallpaper featured other . . . themes.”

He smiled. Her heart thudded. Her almost hag-hood notwithstanding, she couldn't help being rampantly curious about the latent scoundrel in him. The least reference to his former wickedness had her in a lather. Accompanied by one of those alluring smiles . . . well, she could count on not sleeping much tonight.

“I had the old wallpaper duplicated exactly after I retired from Society. I had everything duplicated, from memory and old photographs. But I found I couldn't really stand it.” He took a sip of his coffee—he'd given up the pretense of drinking tea several weeks ago, admitting that he couldn't stomach the stuff. “So I made a few changes to suit myself.”

“The past does exert a terrible toll, doesn't it?” she said quietly.

He turned an unused teaspoon by its handle, down, and up again. His silence was his answer. In his self-imposed exile there was a strong element of punishment. But it needed not be that way. Not anymore.

“My daughter keeps a private investigator on retainer.” Gigi and her modern, progressive ways. She hoped the duke didn't inquire too closely as to why. “I availed myself of his services on something that concerns you.”

His eyebrow rose. “If you wish to know how Lady Wimpey's bed caught on fire, you've but to ask me.”

A month ago she'd have blushed. Today she didn't even blink. “Actually, I'm more interested in those items of foreign manufacture and iniquitous nature to which Lady Fancot was apparently partial.”

“They were only velvet-lined handcuffs—foreign-made, perhaps, but hardly iniquitous,” he said.

“Good gracious, what is wrong with that woman?” said Mrs. Rowland indignantly. “Isn't a nice strong silk scarf good enough for her?”

He almost sprayed coffee all over the tablecloth. Good grief.
This woman
constantly forced him to reevaluate his opinion on what being a virtuous woman entailed. Apparently, sexual creativity in a proper, earnest English marriage was not half as dead as he'd believed.

“But I digress,” she said, reverting to an impeccable demureness that hid God knew what other experiences and inclinations, a contrast rich in properties aphrodisiacal. His younger self would have expended enough wherewithal to wage three wars to possess her already. His current self did exactly the same, but only in his mind.

“Now, where was I? Oh, yes. I had the detective look into the state of Mr. Elliot's marriage.”

He wouldn't quite compare her announcement to being shot in the chest, having lived through the latter—but it came perilously close. He felt as he had then, standing dumbly in place, looking down at his hand clasped just to the right of his heart, blood seeping out between his fingers.

How could she, of all people, not understand that he could not bear to learn the truth of what had happened to the Elliots' marriage? That whatever peace and tranquillity he'd been able to derive from his hermit's life had depended on his not knowing, on hoping that he had not brought about the unhappiness of an entire family?

Perhaps she sensed the magnitude of shock in him. Her face turned somber. “I shouldn't have, I know.”

He glared at her. “Lady, your specialty is undertaking that which you shouldn't. Rest assured you'll face vituperation such as you've never imagined.” He could have gone on longer, informed her of his exquisite command of invectives, and depicted in graphic detail the shrunken, pockmarked state of her soul after he was done with her. He didn't. There was no point in postponing the inevitable, though God knew he wanted to. “Now tell me what your detective has learned.”

“They are fine,” she said, smiling sweetly.

His imagination was playing tricks on him. He thought she said they were fine. “The truth, if you will,” he said.

“My detective worked in the Elliot household for several weeks and reported with confidence that Mr. and Mrs. Elliot get along very well, not just with civility but with fondness.”

“You are making it up, aren't you?” he mumbled. How could it be? How could any human association that had gone so wrong right itself? Was he in error after all and Man not quite as doomed as he'd long gloomily believed?

“You need not depend solely on what I say. The detective's name is Samuel Ripley. He worked for the Elliots for three weeks last month, under the name Samuel Trimble, as an under-butler. What I tell you is but a summary of his written report, which arrived yesterday on the late post. It is a richly detailed document, with all overheard exchanges and eyewitness accounts painstakingly recorded.

“My daughter is nothing if not prescient at employing people with the utmost dedication. It is clear to me that Mr. Ripley spent an inordinate amount of time at keyholes and upper-story windows. Why, there are sections of the report that I hastily skimmed over, to preserve my womanly delicacy.”

His heart constricted. His throat constricted. The dark cloud of culpability had hung over his head for so long, he'd forgotten the pure, beatific light of a clear conscience.

“I've brought the report with me, if you would like to have it fetched from my carriage.”

He rose, fetched the nearly half-inch-thick document himself, and, standing next to Mrs. Rowland's landau, read every word of the meticulously chronicled domestic life of Mr. and Mrs. Elliot, not skipping any sections, particularly not those in which the couple engaged in activities that they ought to have performed no more times than they had children. He especially enjoyed the lurid yet sweet endearments they had for each other.
My darling little dumpling. My lord of the battering ram.

Langford Fitzwilliam, His Grace the Duke of Perrin, returned to the south parlor walking on air, blinded by the incomprehensible beauty of the world.

Mrs. Rowland had a glass of cognac waiting for him. “There, sir,” she said. “You have not ruined a man's life. You may breathe easy again.”

He drained the cognac. Fires of joy spread in him unabated. “I feel I can smile through a hundred small country dinners.”

“That is exceedingly heartening news. I've at least that many people to impress by having a duke at my table.”

“Only at your table?” He grinned. “Where have all your ambitions gone?”

“Not gone at all, only mellowed, Your Grace. I stand today quite satisfied to rub people's faces in our warm friendship.”

He
tsked.
“I'd have expected more from you, Mrs. Rowland. You do know what your revelation means, do you not?”

The idea had been knocking in his head for some days. It had slipped in, like a determined lover, past all gates and barricades to whisper by the fluttering curtains of the virgin bower that was his entire experience with matrimony. And the idea was, he would be quite happy to marry her, if she would have him.

But his past had weighed on his aspirations. What right did he have, hissed some dank, sinister voice, to the love of a good woman, any good woman, let alone one as beautiful, accomplished, and wise as Mrs. Rowland? What right did
he
have to happiness for himself, when he'd so casually despoiled the happiness of others?

But that was no longer the case. He was an emancipated man, liberated from the bondage of blame and self-torment, at ease to enjoy the years remaining to him, with her by his side and in his bed, if he was so fortunate.

The gleam in his eyes made Victoria's heart skip a beat. “That there is still time left to plan a bacchanal?”

“No, that it frees me to propose marriage to you.”

She felt as flabbergasted as she'd been when she discovered herself in love with John Rowland. “You wish to
marry
me?”

“What in the world do you think I have been up to, madam? Have I not followed the rules of courtship most assiduously? Drinking tea, for heaven's sake. You should be flattered. I'd rather drink from my horse's trough.”

“I thought you wished to speak of bygone years. Or, at most, make me amenable to a liaison.”

“I do want to reminisce. And I do plan to take you to bed, madam. Neither, however, precludes marriage.”

“But I am going to be fifty years of age in less than fifteen months!” she cried—and couldn't believe she gave away that carefully guarded secret.

“Excellent news. That makes you a few years younger than I'd thought.”

Her eyes went round. “You thought I was
how
old?”

He laughed. “I didn't. I took our age difference into consideration and found that it didn't half-matter. Since you found happiness with a man nineteen years your senior, there is no reason for you to be undone by a man a few years your junior.”

“I—I cannot give you any heir.”

“For which my cousin's son would be intensely grateful.” He took her hand, further disorienting her. “Allow me to assure you, madam, that the thought of infants at my age is profoundly distressing. My second cousin once removed is an upstanding enough fellow. I have no regrets about Ludlow Court passing to him.”

She was tempted to say yes right away. Oh, how she was tempted. Not since the invention of chocolate gâteau had there been a greater temptation than what the duke dangled before her nose just now.
Her Grace the Duchess of Perrin.
These magical words exploded shivers of delight deep into her viscera. That at this stage in her life, with old age breathing down her neck like an overeager suitor, she could still gain all the prestige and social stature she'd ever craved, with the man once considered the most elusive bachelor in the kingdom. Why, what kind of fool could possibly respond in the negative?