Private Arrangements (29 page)

She bolted out of her chair, jerking her hand away from him. “No.” She shook her head, her voice shaking just perceptibly. “No. Your marrying me would be little different from your efforts to restore Ludlow Court to a facsimile of what it had been when your parents were alive.”

He frowned. “I fail to observe any similarity between the two.”

“Don't you see? Like the wallpaper, I was your mother's choice!”

“Am I to understand that in following my heart's— not to mention my loins'—desire, I am but atoning for my adolescent negligence of my mother, by fulfilling her wish posthumously?”

She wished it were otherwise, but she wasn't blind. He liked her. He was physically attracted to her. But what separated her from the pack was that she provided a link to his lost youth. “Yes.”

“You object to such a noble purpose?”

Oh, drat the man. How could he be flippant at a time like this, when she felt herself about to crumple, held erect only by the stiffness of her corset. “Because it is more wishful thinking than noble purpose. Your mother, bless her memory, would be proud of the man you are today. No further appeasement is necessary.”

He nodded, at last appearing somewhat thoughtful. “I take it that is your primary and overwhelming objection.”

“It is.”

“Any others I should know about? My contrariness, for example? My distaste for tea?”

“No, none at all.” She wished there were others. They would make it less painful to refuse his offer.

He smiled, a smile that twenty-five years ago would have left a wide swath of upended crinolines in its wake. “If that is indeed the case, then permit me to read something to you, my dear Mrs. Rowland.”

He rose and walked to a satinwood writing desk that had belonged to his mother. More than once the duchess had gone to the desk to retrieve something to show Victoria, during her long-ago visits.

The duke brought out a large vellum-covered book from a lower drawer. “My mother's diary.” He quickly turned it three-quarters of the way and then slowly flipped a few more pages, looking for an exact place. “Here's what she wrote on the eighteenth of November, 1862.”

He lifted the diary, turned to face her, and read.
“Had tea with Miss Pierce today. Our last time, I suppose. She thanked me for my friendship and informed me of her engagement to a Mr. Rowland, a wealthy man with no antecedents of significance. A pity. Had planned to introduce her to Hubert. They would have made a pleasant match.”

“Hubert?” Was Hubert one of the duke's given names? She'd thought his full name was Langford Alexander
Humphrey
Fitzwilliam. “Who is Hubert?”

“A cousin of mine. The Honorable Hubert Lancaster, third son of Baron Wesport. Lady Wesport was my mother's eldest sister. Hubert would have been about twenty-six at that time.”

“Her
nephew?”
Victoria reeled. She covered her mouth with her hand. Merciful heavens. All these years, all these years . . .

“A nice enough man, with a very respectable name and a very minor fortune,” said the duke. “You mustn't forget, I was all of what, fifteen, sixteen at the time? My marriage was far from foremost on my mother's mind. And for all her kindness, she was not unaware of our position. She herself had been the daughter of an earl. She probably expected at least as much pedigree in a daughter-in-law.”

Victoria groaned. This was more mortifying even than having her daughter and son-in-law thinking that she'd engaged in illicit acts to lure the duke to her dining table. “If you will be kind enough to have your footman fetch me a spade, I would like to excavate a ten-foot hole outside for myself.”

“And ruin my thoroughly beautiful gardens? I think not, my dear.” She heard him shut the diary and return it to the drawer. “It's no shame to let your youthful imagination get carried away. Far worldlier women than you have lost their heads over me.”

Oh, that man and his arrogance. Her skin must have thickened nicely with age, for she was already in retorting shape. “If you wish me for a bride, you shouldn't try so hard to have me expire from mortification.”

He came so close that she could smell the lingering scent of his shaving soap. Her middle-aged heart began pounding. This was actually going to happen. This monumentally desirable, marvelous, and interesting man esteemed her enough to want her hand in marriage. Her!

“May I take your silence to signify that you've accepted my suit?”

“I've said no such thing,” she said perversely.

“You should. I've proved, conclusively, that I'm not doing my mother's bidding from beyond the grave. And by your own words, spoken a bare two minutes ago, you have no other objections to marrying me, none at all.” He paused, rather deliberately, his eyes sparkling with gleeful wickedness. “I see. You want me to exert myself further. Well then, seducing a woman should be right up my alley, if only I could remember how. Now, do I kiss you before I lie with you or only afterward?”

She summoned a pinch of mock outrage. “As I said before, what a sheltered life you've led, Your Grace. It is both. I'm shocked—shocked, I say—that you do not know better.”

He grinned widely. “I don't know why I haven't taken up with virtuous women before. I'm delighted to be making up for lost time.”

With that, he kissed her.

It was neither the lofty, delicate kiss she'd envisioned as a nubile girl, nor the sin-drenched osculation that had lately dominated her imagination. He kissed her with gusto and delight, a man at last achieving his heart's desire.

She melted accordingly, in complete contentment.

He pulled away after too short a time. “Now say yes,” he urged, nuzzling at the corner of her lips.

“Hardly,” she huffed. “I am not signing away my independence on the basis of one kiss, as delicious as it may be. Remember, Your Grace, I was a married woman. A
happily
married one. You, sir, will have to demonstrate ability beyond kissing to persuade me to the altar.”

He laughed, a sound of robust delight. Glancing around the parlor, his gaze settled on a scroll-armed settee upholstered in cream brocade.

“All right.” He kissed her again. “Be careful what you wish for, my dear Mrs. Rowland. Or you might just get it.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

8 September 1893

N
ew York City made Gigi's stomach churn.

Though she'd read that the city aspired to be the new Paris, she hadn't expected a very near copy of it. Certain sections of the city, with its solidly neoclassical edifices, their friezes and cornices plastered in motifs botanical and mythological, could easily have passed for parts of the Right Bank. And one particular church she passed on the way to her hotel had been an unabashed copy of Notre Dame.

She could scarcely control her labored breathing, though she walked with all the speed of a reform bill plodding through parliament. Steady traffic flowed up and down the avenue, a percussive chorus of hooves striking pavement and wagon wheels creaking under their load. From a nearby street came the rumble of an elevated train. The air, though less polluted than London's, emanated the familiar notes of horseflesh and industry, though it also hinted faintly, and ever so exotically, of sausage and mustard.

She made sure to inspect all the hotels, the shopfronts, and all the millionaire manses that crowded lower Fifth Avenue. Still, the distance disappeared in no time. Suddenly she was at the right intersection, the right address. She clenched her fingers about the whalebone handle of her parasol and wrenched her gaze from the opposite side of the street.

No, she must be mistaken. Camden, in his perfect breeding, had always been so modest, so restrained in everything he did. There was nothing in the least modest about this gorgeous manor that looked as if it had been bodily lifted from some nobleman's estate in the heart of Europe. The facade was of pearl-gray granite, the jaunty, polygonal roof dark blue slate. The windows sparkled like the eyes of a flirtatious belle at her most successful ball. And every ornate line and sensuous curve spoke of high baroque and lavish wealth.

She felt like she had the first time she'd seen Camden naked: flabbergasted, speechless, and just about falling down with excitement. She had not come properly prepared. To storm this particular citadel, she'd need much more of the paraphernalia of her own wealth and station to convince a suspicious butler that she was the real Lady Tremaine and not some imposter out to steal the silver.

When the door opened, however, the butler recognized her nearly immediately, judging from his jaw bouncing off the black marble-tiled vestibule. He recovered quickly, stepped back, and bowed. “My lady Tremaine.”

Gigi stared at him. The man looked vaguely familiar. She was sure she'd seen him before. She was—

“Beckett!” Amazement and guilt muddled her veins. When her scheme had fallen apart, she hadn't been the only one punished. As surely as the Empress of India was an Englishwoman of German blood, Beckett had abruptly left Twelve Pillars because Camden had discovered his role in the scam. How could he, then, of all people, head the staff in Camden's service?

“You are . . .” What could she say to him? And had he guessed, over the years, what her role had been in all this? “You are in New York.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Beckett said respectfully, as he took her parasol, but offered no elaborations. “May I offer you some excellent tea from Assam while we see to your luggage?”

The anteroom was glorious, the drawing room nearly rapturous in its opulence. She'd been in royal palaces that were less rich in furnishing and art—and what art, as if someone had taken a section of the grand gallery of the Louvre and made it into a living space. Not that she didn't find it perfectly to her taste, but what had happened to Camden's preference for understated houses and Impressionist paintings?

“I have brought no luggage,” she said. Now, the all-important question. “Is Lord Tremaine home?”

“Lord Tremaine has gone sailing with a group of friends,” said Beckett. “We expect him to return no later than five o'clock in the afternoon.”

Surely they couldn't be speaking of the same Lord Tremaine. First a house in which a cake-loving Marie Antoinette would have felt quite at home. And now this supposedly hardworking entrepreneur out frolicking when it wasn't even remotely Sunday?

“In that case, I will call another time,” she said. She couldn't possibly sit in the drawing room and sip tea for the next five or six hours. It'd be too strange.

She was beginning to regret a little that she'd asked every person in England who knew Camden's whereabouts not to breathe a word of her Atlantic crossing to him. Perhaps she should have sent advance notice.

“Lord Tremaine is hosting a dinner tonight. Should I send around a carriage to fetch your ladyship from your hotel?”

Gigi shook her head. Before a crowd of strangers was hardly the way she'd envisioned their reunion. “I will arrange for my own conveyance, if I decide to attend. And you need mention nothing to Lord Tremaine.”

“As you wish, ma'am.”

“You should have your own children,” said Theodora.

She stood in a pretty powder-blue frock against the foredeck rail of
La Femme,
the forty-footer Camden sailed for pleasure now that he used the
Mistress
mostly for business. Beyond the fluttering ribbons of her hat, a thicket of masts bobbed sedately—a thousand ships before the topless towers of the Financial District.

Camden looked up from the plate of lemon cookies he was sharing with Masha. “How do you know I don't?” he said.

Theodora blinked, then blushed. “Oh,” she said.

He didn't, of course. He'd always been careful. But he probably should have resisted the urge to tease her. The dear girl was never one for jokes. He used to think her beyond adorable when she'd earnestly try to puzzle them out. But then he'd been all of fifteen.

“Forgive me, that was flippant of me,” he said. “You are right, I should have children. I would dearly love a few.”

“But how?” asked Masha. “Mama said you are to be divorced. How can you have children when you are not married?”

“Masha!” Theodora said sharply, her color heightening further.

“It's all right,” said Camden. He turned to Masha, who had her father's sad eyes and long nose. But beneath the face of a lugubrious Russian Madonna lurked a spirit as rambunctious as a dozen sailors on shore leave. “My dear Maria Alekseeva, you are a very shrewd young lady. Indeed, that is my dilemma. What do you propose I do?”

“You must marry someone else,” said Masha decisively.

“But who would marry me, Mashenka? I'm so old, as old as dirt.”

Masha giggled and lowered her voice. “But Mama is even older than you. Does that mean she's older than dirt?”

Camden whispered, “Yes, it does. But don't tell her.”

“What are you whispering about?” said Theodora, a little put out.

“I was just telling Uncle Camden that he should marry you, Mama,” Masha answered cheerfully. “Then you'd be too busy to lecture me.”

Before Theodora could recover from her astonishment enough to say anything, Sasha cried from the aft deck of the schooner, “Masha, come here! I've got something tremendous.”

Masha promptly dashed off to help her brother reel in his big catch.

“Oh, that girl,” muttered Theodora. “She is going to be my despair.”

“I wouldn't worry about her,” said Camden. “She will fend for herself just fine.”

Theodora said nothing. She closed her parasol, held it with both hands before her abdomen, then set its tip down on the deck. Her index finger traced what seemed to be random patterns on the parasol handle. But he knew she was unconsciously writing down her thoughts.
Gott. Gott. Gott.

She was embarrassed and discomfited. In this she hadn't changed much. Camden helped himself to another cookie.

“I hope you don't think that I came to New York because . . . because you are about to be a free man.”

“You didn't?” He'd never alluded to his marital woes. But Theodora was quite aware of them, judging by what Masha had said.

Theodora twisted her hands together, mortified. She was not accustomed to such directness from him. Mutely, she gazed at him, her enormous blue eyes beseeching him to assess the situation, infer what she wanted, and offer it to her without her ever having to speak a word—what he'd always done before.

He sighed. She'd come at a wretched time, when he desperately wanted to be either alone at sea or alone in his workshop. He hadn't the heart to disappoint the children, so he'd spent the past three weeks showing them a good time in the city. But he had no wherewithal left to play guessing games with her. If she wanted something from him—and she did,
something—
then she could damned well come out and say it.

“Will you really divorce Lady Tremaine?” she asked timidly.

“She is the one who wants a divorce, therefore we are headed for a divorce,” he said, more surly than he'd intended. A letter had arrived from Addleshaw this morning, assuring him that the engagement ring he had requested from Gigi would arrive forthwith.

He didn't want the damned ring. Wasn't it enough that he had to look at the cursed piano? He wanted
her
to come with the ring. But his ploy had failed. She would marry Lord Frederick. And he, what would he do?

“You will need another wife, won't you?” Theodora's voice had dropped so low that he barely heard the last few syllables.

He didn't need another wife. He wanted the one he already had. “That is a question for the future.”

Gott hilf mir,
her finger scribbled. Well, God help them all.

The children screamed in delight, breaking the uneasy silence. “Look what we got! Look what we got!” hollered Sasha, running toward them with a striped bass that looked to be at least a five-pounder.

“Look at that!” exclaimed Camden, standing up. “I never caught anything half so big when I was your age.”

He unhooked the vigorously thrashing fish and tossed it into a bucket of water. “Want to have it served with a lemon butter sauce for supper?”

“Yes!” the boy answered unambiguously.

“Right ho!” Camden lifted Sasha high in the air and spun him around.

“Me, me too! I helped,” said Masha, raising her arms up to Camden.

He did the same with her, enjoying her high-pitched giggles. “My expert anglers, think you two can catch another one before we set sail?”

They ran off, leaving him again alone with Theodora. He opened the lid of the picnic basket to store the remainder of their lunch: half of a cold chicken pie, slices of roast beef, an almost empty dish of potato salad, and a few lemon cookies.

Theodora came to stand beside him as he returned a flask of lemonade to its place. “I've been thinking of the past, of St. Petersburg,” she murmured. “Remember what you used to say to me then?”

“I haven't forgotten.” He closed the picnic basket and stared down at it. “But the truth is, I'll be bitter over the divorce. A new wife would find me lacking in both affection and care, and I love you too well to subject you to that.”

There, he'd finally admitted it. The divorce would devastate him. Would come just short of annihilating him. He dreaded the post deliveries, dreaded any and all letters from his English solicitors, dreaded the eventual cable from Mrs. Rowland decrying Gigi's irreversible folly.

“I see.”

She sounded abysmally dejected, like a child being told that there would be no Christmas come December. He pulled her toward him. “But I will still take care of you, always. If you are ever in need, I'm just a cable away. And if, God forbid, something should happen to you, I'll raise the twins as my own.”

He kissed the top of her straw hat. “I will take care of everything for you, you still have my word on that.”

“I guess . . . I guess that's all any woman could ask for,” she said slowly. The shadow on her face lifted. She smiled shyly and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you. You are the best friend I ever had.”

They stood thus for a minute, with his hand on her waist and her face resting against his sleeve. He sighed. Ironic that he should have his arm about Theodora on a boat that he'd again somehow named after Gigi—
La Femme,
the woman, the wife.

But the sun was warm, the breeze cool. It was still a beautiful day even if he couldn't have his wife. He returned a kiss to Theodora's cheek. “Shall we sail?”