Private Arrangements, page 9
His gaze returned to her. “Thank you, I might. Especially since it already has my initials inscribed.”
He was standing close enough that she imagined she could smell him, the scent of a man after mid-night—naked skin under silk dressing gown. “Get to it, will you?” she murmured. “All this sexual skittishness is not very attractive in a man.”
“Yes, yes, I'm well aware. But the fact remains, I'm loath to touch you.”
“Turn off all the lights. Pretend I'm someone else.”
“That would be difficult. You tend to be vocal.”
She colored. She couldn't help it. “I'll sew my lips shut.”
He shook his head slowly. “It's no use. You breathe and I'll know it's you.”
Ten years ago she'd have taken it for a declaration of love. Her heart still gave a throb, a lonely echo.
He bowed. “One more piece and I'm off to bed.”
As she left, he began playing something as soft and haunting as the last roses of summer. She recognized it in two bars: Liebesträume. He and Mrs. Rowland had played it together that first night of their acquaintance. Even Gigi, incompetent musician that she was, could pick out that melody on the piano with one hand.
Dream of Love. All that she ever had with him.
Mrs. Rowland's campaign to woo the duke had hit a snag.
For a day or so, things went terribly well. The case of Chatêau Lafite went promptly to Ludlow Court. A gracious thank-you note came back just as promptly, accompanied by a basket of apricot and peach preserves from Ludlow Court's own orchards.
Then nothing. Victoria sent an invitation to the duke for her next charity gala. He gave a generous cheque, but declined to attend the event. Two days later, she plucked up the audacity to call upon Ludlow Court in person, only to be told that the duke was not at home.
It'd been five years since she resettled in Devon in her childhood house, which she'd purchased from her nephew. Five years during which to observe the duke's comings and goings. She knew perfectly well that he never went anywhere else except for his daily walk.
Which left her no choice but to intercept him during his walk again.
She pretended to inspect the roses in the front garden, a pair of snipping scissors in hand, never mind that no self-respecting gardener ever did her cuttings in the middle of the afternoon. Her heart thumped as he came around the bend in the path at his usual hour. But by the time she'd maneuvered herself next to the low gate by the path, she barely got a “good afternoon” out of him before he sailed on past.
The next day she waited near the front of the garden, to no better results. The duke refused to be drawn into chitchat. Her comment on the weather only garnered the same “good afternoon” as the day before. For three days after that it rained. He walked in mackintosh and galoshes. But she could not possibly work in the garden—or even pretend to—in a downpour.
She gritted her teeth and decided to make an even greater nuisance of herself. She would walk with him. As God was her witness, she would bag, truss, and deliver this duke to Gigi at whatever cost to her own dignity.
Clad in a white walking dress and sensible walking boots, she waited in the front parlor of the cottage. When he appeared around the bend in the distance, she pounced, her tassel-fringed parasol in tow.
“I've decided to take up some exercise myself, Your Grace.” She smiled as she closed the garden gate behind her. “Do you mind if I walk with you?”
He raised a pair of pince-nez from around his neck and looked down at her through the lenses. Goodness gracious but the man was ducal in every little gesture. He was not unusually tall, about five foot ten, but one chill look from him and the Colossus of Rhodes would feel like a midget.
He didn't give express permission. He merely dropped the pince-nez and nodded, murmuring, “Madam.” And immediately resumed his walk, leaving Victoria to scamper in his wake, hurrying to catch up.
She had known, of course, that he walked fast. But it didn't dawn upon her until she'd tried to catch up with him for ten minutes just how fast he walked. For a rare moment she wished she had Gigi's tremendous height instead of her own more demure five feet two inches.
Chucking aside all ladylike restraints, she broke into a half run, cursing the narrow confines of her skirts, and finally ended up at his side. She had prepared various openings, bits and pieces of local trivia. But by the time she finished enumerating interesting packets of historical details concerning the house next down the lane, she'd be five feet behind him again. And having been very ladylike all her life, she wasn't sure she could manage another run without expiring of apoplexy.
So she got to the point. “Would you care for dinner at my house two weeks from Wednesday, Your Grace? My daughter will be visiting that week. I'm sure she'd be delighted to meet you.”
She'd have to go up to London and drag Gigi down. But that she'd worry about later.
“I am a very fussy eater, Mrs. Rowland, and usually do not enjoy meals prepared by anyone but my own cook.”
Drat it. Why must he be so difficult? What did a woman have to do to get him into her house? Dance naked in front of him? Then no doubt he'd complain of vertigo.
“I'm sure we could—”
“But I might consider accepting your invitation if you would grant me a favor in return.”
If it weren't so darned exhausting to keep up with him, she'd have halted in her tracks, stunned. “I would be honored. What might I do for you, Your Grace?”
“I am an admirer of the peace and quiet of the country life, as you well know,” he said. Did she detect a trace of sarcasm in his voice? “But even the most ardent admirer of the country life sometimes misses the pleasures of the town.”
“Indeed.”
“I haven't gambled for the past fifteen years.”
This duke, a gambler? But he was a recluse, a Homeric scholar with his nose buried in old parchment. “I see,” she said, though she didn't.
“I hear the siren call of a green baize table. But I do not wish to go to London to satisfy myself. Will you be so gracious as to play a few hands with me?”
This time she did come to a dead stop. “Me? Gamble?”
She had never even bet a shilling. Gambling, in her opinion, was about the daftest thing a woman could do, other than divorcing a man who would one day be a duke.
“Of course, I would understand if you object to—”
“Not at all,” she heard herself say. “I have no objections whatsoever to a bit of harmless betting.”
“I like it more interesting than that,” he said. “One thousand pounds a hand.”
“And I admire men who play for high stakes,” she squeaked.
What was wrong with her? When she accepted giving up her dignity, she hadn't planned on surrendering every last ounce of her good sense as well. And lying outright, complimenting him on the most foolish, most self-destructive trait a man could possess! There came a time in every good Protestant's life when she yearned for a simple, sin-absolving trip to the papists' confession booth.
“Very well, then.” The Duke of Perrin nodded his approval. “Shall we set a date and a time?”
Chapter Ten
January 1883
My dear cousin, the Grand Duke Aleksey, is getting married today,” said the Countess von Loffler-Lisch—more affectionately known as Aunt Ploni, short for Appolonia. She was a second cousin of Camden's mother and had come all the way from Nice to attend his wedding. “I hear the bride is some gold-digging nobody.”
He would be called that very same if he didn't stand in direct line of succession to a ducal title, Camden thought wryly. Instead, Gigi would bear the brunt of the snickering their hasty marriage was certain to engender, for her feats of social mountaineering.
“Your noble cousin's wedding would have been the grander affair,” said Camden.
“Very likely.” The elderly countess nodded, her hair a rare shade of pure silver and elaborately coiffed. “Zut! I can't recall the bride's name. Elenora von Schellersheim? Von Scheffer-Boyadel? Or is her name not even Elenora?”
Camden smiled. Aunt Ploni was known for her prodigious memory. It must gall her to no end not remembering something right at the tip of her tongue.
He sat down next to her and poured more curaçao into her digestif glass. “Where is the bride from?”
“Somewhere on the border with Poland, I think.”
“We know some people from there,” he said. Theodora, for one.
The countess frowned and tried to concentrate amid the lively conversation flowing in the great drawing room at Twelve Pillars. Thirty of Camden's relatives had arrived from the Continent to attend the wedding, despite the short notice. And his mother was ever so pleased to finally be able to receive people in a mansion, however neglected, of her own.
“Von Schweinfurt?” Aunt Ploni refused to give up. “I do hate growing old. I never forgot a name when I was younger. Let's see. Von Schwanwisch?”
“Von Schnurbein? Von Schottenstein?” Camden teased her. He was in a buoyant mood. Tomorrow this time he would be getting married to the most remarkable girl he'd ever met. And tomorrow night—
“Von Schweppenburg!” the countess exclaimed. “There, that's it! Haven't quite lost all my marbles after all.”
“Von Schweppenburg?” He'd accidentally electrocuted himself once during an experiment at the Polytechnique. He felt exactly the same shock in his fingertips now. “You mean Count Georg von Schweppenburg's widow?”
“Dear me, not quite that bad. His daughter. Theodora, that's her name, not Elenora, after all. Poor Alesha is quite smitten.”
Something droned in the back of his head, an incipient alarm that he tried to dismiss. Titles that had their origins during the Holy Roman Empire went on in perpetuity to all male issue. There could very well be another late Count Georg, from a lateral branch of the von Schweppenburg family, who had a marriageable daughter named Theodora.
But what were the chances? No, they were speaking of his Theodora here, the one whose happiness he had once hoped to secure. But how? How could she marry two men in one month? The simple answer was that she couldn't. Either the countess was wrong or Theodora herself was wrong. A laughable choice, really. Of course Theodora would know the name of the man she was going to marry. The countess had to be mistaken.
“I met her years ago, when we were in Peters,” he said carefully. “I thought she married some Polish prince.”
The countess snorted. “Now, wouldn't that be interesting, a real live bigamist? Unfortunately, I've no hope for it. According to Alesha, his intended is as pure as the arctic ice field, with a mother who watches her every move. You must be mistaken, my boy.”
The clamor in his head escalated. He poured a goblet full of the digestif and downed it in one long gulp. The cognac at the base of the liqueur burned in his throat, but the sensation barely registered.
“It's only two o'clock in the afternoon. A bit early to be doing your last bout of bachelor drinking, eh?” cackled Aunt Ploni. “Not getting cold feet, are you?”
He wouldn't know if his feet were cold. He couldn't feel any of his limbs. The only thing he felt was confusion and a rising sense of peril, as if the solid ground beneath him had suddenly splintered, cracking dark webs of fissure and fracture as far as he could see.
He rose and bowed to the countess. “Hardly. But I do beg your pardon, noble cousin. There is a small matter that requires my attention. I hope to see you again at dinner.”
Camden couldn't think any better away from the drawing room. He wandered the silent, drafty corridors as bits and pieces of what Aunt Ploni had said streaked about in his head like panicky hens facing a weasel invasion.
He didn't exactly understand why, but he was scared witless. What frightened him most was that he knew, deep in his guts, that Aunt Ploni had not been mistaken.
At a turn in the hallway, near the front of the house, he bumped right into a young footman carrying a tray of letters. “Beg your pardon, milord!” the footman apologized immediately, and got down on all fours to retrieve the scattered missives.
As the footman gathered up the letters, Camden saw two addressed to him. He recognized the handwriting of his friends. The new university term had already started; they must be wondering why he hadn't returned yet. He had not informed his classmates of his upcoming marriage—he and Gigi had decided to throw a surprise reception in Paris, in the spacious apartment her agent had located for them on Montagne Sainte Geneviève in the Quartier Latin, a stone's throw from his classes. A few essential items of furnishing had already been set up at the apartment, where a cook and a maid had also taken up residence in preparation for their arrival.
He held out his hand for the tray. “I'll take them, Elwood.”
Elwood looked baffled. “But, sir, Mr. Beckett said all letters must go to him first, so he could sort them out.”
“Since when?”
“Since right about Christmas last, sir. Mr. Beckett said His Grace didn't like too many letters begging him for charity.”
What? Camden almost said the word aloud. His father had never met a beggar for whom he didn't have a coin to spare. It was his very softheartedness that had in part made them paupers.
An appalling suspicion was beginning to coalesce in Camden's mind. He wanted to bat it away with something heavy and powerful—a club, a mace—to disperse the filaments of deductions and inferences that threatened to choke his perfect contentment. He wanted to forget what he had heard about the majordomo just now, ignore the clamor in his head that had risen to a screaming siren, and pretend that everything was exactly as it should be.
Tomorrow he was getting married. He couldn't wait to sleep with that girl. He couldn't wait to wake up next to her every day, bask in her adoration, and delight in her verve.
“Very well, take these to Beckett,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
Camden watched the footman march down the hallway. Let him go. Let him go. Don't ask questions. Don't think. Don't probe.
“Wait,” he commanded.
Elwood turned around obediently. “Yes, sir?”
“Tell Beckett I would like to see him in my apartment in fifteen minutes.”
Chapter Eleven
22 May 1893
A gentleman's club had seemed the perfect remedy after a tiring, weeklong business trip to the Continent, during which he'd thought very little of his business and too much of his wife. But Camden was beginning to regret his freshly minted membership. He had never set foot inside an English gentleman's club before, but he had harbored the distinct impression that it would be a quiet, calm place, filled with men escaping the strictures of wives and hearths, drinking scotch, holding desultory political debates, and snoring softly into their copies of the Times.
Certainly the interior of the club, which looked as if it had not been touched in half a century—fading burgundy drapes, wallpaper splotchily darkened by gaslights, and furnishing that in another decade or so would be called genteelly shabby—had seemed conducive to somnolence, giving him the false hope that he'd be able to while away the afternoon, brooding in peace. And he had done so for a few minutes, until a crowd begging for introductions surrounded him.
The conversation had quickly turned to Camden's various holdings. He hadn't quite believed Mrs. Rowland when she declared in one of her letters that Society had changed and that people could not shut up about money these days. Now he did.
“How much would such a yacht cost?” asked one eager young man.
“Is there a sizable profit to be realized?” asked another.
Perhaps the agricultural depression that had cut many a large estate's income by half had something to do with it. The aristocracy was in a pinch. The manor, the carriages, and the servants all bled money, which was getting scarcer by the day. Unemployment, for centuries the gentlemanly standard—so that one could devote one's time to serving as parliamentarian and magistrate—was becoming more and more of an untenable position. But as of yet, few gentlemen had the audacity to work. So they talked, to scratch the itch of collective anxiety.
“Such a yacht costs enough that only a handful of America's richest men can afford one,” Camden said. “But, alas, not so much that those who supply them can claim instant riches.”
If he were to solely rely on the firm he owned that designed and built yachts, he'd be a well-off man but nowhere near wealthy enough to hobnob with Manhattan's elite. It was his other maritime ventures, the freight-shipping line and the shipyard that built commercial vessels, that comprised what Americans called the “meat-and-potato” portion of his portfolio.
“How does one come into possession of such a firm?” asked yet another man from the group of interlocutors, this one not as young as the others—and, judging by his silhouette, sporting a corset beneath his waistcoat.
Camden glanced toward the grandfather clock that stood between two bookshelves against the far wall. Whatever the time was, he was going to say that he was expected elsewhere in half an hour. The time was quarter past three, and beside the clock stood Lord Wrenworth, observing the mob about Camden with amusement.
“How?” Camden looked back at the corseted man. “Good luck, good timing, and a wife who is worth her weight in gold, my dear fellow.”
His answer was received with a silence halfway between shock and awe. He took the opportunity to stand up. “Excuse me, gentlemen. I'd like to have a word with Lord Wrenworth.”
My daughter sends me postcards from the Lake District. I hear Lord Wrenworth is also there.
My daughter is going to Scotland with a large party of friends, Lord Wrenworth included, for a sennight.
My daughter, when I last saw her at a dinner, sported a fetching pair of diamond bracelets that I'd never seen before. She was unusually coy about their provenance.
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