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Number 26 Cambury Lane.

Verity yanked her gaze away from the front door. Before the house, to the left of the portico, a space had been created between street and house to provide for a service entrance to the basement. The space was surrounded by a shoulder-high wrought-iron railing for the protection of pedestrians. A gate in the railing opened to a set of steps leading down.

The plain, sturdy service door was opened by an equally plain, sturdy housekeeper, who introduced herself as Mrs. Abercromby. Verity gave her own name and the names of the subordinates she’d brought, Becky Porter and Marjorie Flotty, a slow-witted but dedicated scullery maid.

The basement contained the kitchen, the pantry, a water closet, something Mrs. Abercromby called the boiler room, and the servants’ hall. The servants’ hall was a tidy room, with wallpaper that might once have been the color of freshly kilned bricks but had since darkened to the reddish brown of roasted barley malt.

They’d arrived at teatime, and the other servants of the house were all present in the servants’ hall, seated on benches to either side of a long table. There were two maids, Ellen and Mavis, as well as Mr. Durbin, Mr. Somerset’s valet, and Wallace, who lived upstairs in the mews and took care of Mr. Somerset’s brougham and two black Friesians.

Ellen and Mavis shared cooking duties, and both looked relieved, rather than peeved, that a professed cook with her own kitchen crew was now among them. They were intrigued by Verity’s apparent Frenchness—and seemed not to know much about her past with Bertie, for their interest was mild and benign.

Verity accepted the offer of tea and Mrs. Abercromby’s hard biscuits and tried not to remind herself that the last time she was in this house, she hadn’t needed to come in through the service entrance.

Why had she come at all?

She’d composed her resignation letter and a polite, if terse, response to Mr. Somerset, regretting that she could not go to London, as she would be in Paris instead. Then, letters in pocket, she’d gone down to Mrs. Boyce’s office. But when Mrs. Boyce had asked what she could do for Verity, instead of handing in the letters, she had made a request for jars of preserved vegetables and fruits from Mrs. Boyce’s stillroom to be crated and shipped to Mr. Somerset’s town house.

She’d spent the next day directing her underlings in packing the pots, pans, knives, and other tools she needed to cook in an unfamiliar kitchen—never once, somehow, breathing a word to Letty Briggs, her lead apprentice, that Letty would be the one to head the kitchen in Mr. Somerset’s town house. She made arrangements with the head gardener for the fresh hothouse produce that he would send four times a week to London, a city notorious for its problematic supply of greengrocery. She also informed Becky and Marjorie that they would decamp to London, not trusting that Becky would successfully resist Tim Cartwright in her absence, or that some of the friskier undergardeners wouldn’t take advantage of Marjorie’s limited understanding of the ways of the world.

She’d believed, almost to the end, that Letty would go in her stead. And then, at five o’clock in the morning, mere hours before they were to board their train, she realized, as she opened her valise and tossed in her things, that she had no intention of letting anyone go in her stead.

She was a moth drawn to flame, except the lucky moth didn’t know any better. She did. And she couldn’t stop herself.

“At what time does Mr. Somerset like his dinner?” she asked.

The world was better behaved when she cooked. In the kitchen she was the mistress of her own fate—or at least it was easier to pretend so.

“I can’t remember the last time Mr. Somerset dined at home,” said Mrs. Abercromby, sounding faintly embarrassed. “He takes his dinners at his club. But I’m sure he means to dine at home more now that he has a proper cook.”

“He will be dining out tonight also?”

“I asked him this morning before he left,” answered Mrs. Abercromby. “He said you should have some time to settle in.”

Settle in. How could she ever settle in here, in the house he would share with another? But Verity said nothing else. When teacups had been drained and biscuits swallowed, she followed Mrs. Abercromby up the service stairs to the attic.

Her room was small, papered in dark brown to better hide the notorious effects of London’s air, and cold despite the fire already burning in the grate. Opposite the door, the bed lay against the far wall, where the roof leaned in too close to do anything but lie down beneath the four-pane window. To her left was a desk and a chair. To her right, under a speckled mirror, stood a wash cabinet, with a pitcher and a basin on top of it and a chamber pot likely concealed inside.

It was no worse than what she’d expected. She’d shared a smaller room with two other girls when she’d worked under Monsieur David. But she did not want to live in
his
attic, did not want to be
his
servant, did not want reality to further chisel away at her hallowed memories.

And yet here she was. How long would she stay? Until Christmas? Until the wedding? Until he and his new wife had filled their nursery with beautiful, dark-haired infants?

She opened her valise and fumbled for her work dress. She had a pressing need to be in the kitchen.

“I’m sure Mr. Somerset is most kind. But I’m here already and I might as well cook,” she said to Mrs. Abercromby. “At what time does the staff dine?”

Instead of taking his dinner at the Reform Club, as he usually did, Stuart dined at the splendid Belgrave Square town house of the Duke of Arlington, more familiarly addressed as Tin by his friends—from the years when he’d borne the courtesy title of the Marquess of Tinckham.

Stuart had run into Tin at the bathing pool—they belonged to the same swimming club. After a friendly half-mile race, Tin had mentioned that his mother wished to see Stuart; would Stuart mind coming over for dinner?

The Arlingtons, having produced two prime ministers in the last one hundred fifty years, were one of the country’s most politically prominent families. Tin’s late father, the tenth duke, had been a man of enormous persuasion, by virtue of both his oratorical prowess and his unimpeachable personal rectitude. Tin, however, lacked the gift. His heart was in the right place, but he had neither the nerve nor the charisma to herd others to his point of view.

Many a time Stuart wished that the late duke had lived to see the Liberals return to power, and that he was on hand to prevail against his more reluctant colleagues in the House of Lords. Failing that, he wished that the late duke’s seat in the House of Lords, instead of passing to his son, had gone to his widow instead, for the Dowager Duchess of Arlington was—and had always been—the shrewdest politician in the entire clan.

“What is this I hear about Mr. Gladstone refusing to let his cabinet participate in the drafting of the Home Rule bill?” asked the dowager duchess.

She was a matron of the most distinguished appearance, her hair a perfect silver, her black dinner gown the best Japanese silk, and her diamond necklace worth possibly the price of Stuart’s entire house. She was also that rare woman who became more handsome as she aged. The uncharitable might attribute that to her having never been a beauty, but Stuart, who admired the dowager duchess, felt it to be due to her fine intellect, her iron will, and her leonine grace, qualities too often overlooked in a younger woman in favor of a pair of sparkling eyes and a smooth pink cheek.

“I’m afraid your intelligence is as good as mine, Madame,” said Stuart. “And it’s not only the cabinet that has been excluded, but the Irish MPs too.”

Tin shook his head. “Has he learned nothing from the debacle of eighty-six?”

Stuart voiced no judgment. The opening of parliament was still two months in the future, the first reading of the Irish Home Rule bill even further away, but already dissent brewed in the ranks—hardly an auspicious sign.

“What does the cabinet propose to do?” asked the dowager duchess.

“Persuade Mr. Gladstone to agree to a consultation, if we could. And if we cannot, then get our hands on the finished bill as soon as possible.”

The dowager duchess accepted a dish of Bavarian cream from her footman. “Anything that concerns you particularly?”

The entire matter concerned Stuart deeply, for it was his responsibility to shepherd the bill through the lower house. Serious flaws in the bill would make its passage an even greater uphill battle than it already promised to be.

“The money, Madame, always the money,” he said.

How much would everything cost? What was to be Ireland’s contribution to the Imperial Exchequer? Dared he hope that Mr. Gladstone’s calculations contained no mistakes when there was no one to check the Grand Old Man’s work?

The dowager duchess smiled slightly. “Of course, the money.”

Stuart took a spoonful of his serving of Bavarian cream. Like the rest of the meal, it was good, but far from divine. The dowager duchess prided herself on having the best of everything. He wondered how she’d react when she realized that Stuart now had the best private cook in England.

Almost as if she’d heard his thought, Her Grace said, “There is word in town that you’ve inherited your late brother’s cook, Mr. Somerset.”

“I have.”

“A problematic woman, from what I’ve heard.”

It didn’t surprise Stuart that the dowager duchess would know about Madame Durant. But it did surprise him that she’d speak of her. The dowager duchess was not a loquacious woman and rarely conversed on frivolous topics. He’d have thought the subject of Bertie’s cook to be quite beneath her. “She is not the perfect servant, but her food is good enough for the queen and the pope. For that I’m willing to tolerate an artistic temperament.”

The dowager duchess took a sip of her sauterne. When she spoke again, it was to ask him about legislative matters that he planned to have out of the way before the first reading of the Irish Home Rule bill.

But later, at the conclusion of dinner, as she rose to withdraw, she called Stuart to follow her. He glanced at Tin. Tin shrugged. His mother did as she pleased. Stuart caught up with the dowager duchess outside the dining room—she was waiting for him.

“There is something you should know about your cook,” she said.

Again his cook? “You speak of Madame Durant, Madame?”

“Ten years ago, your brother came close to marrying her.”

Stuart said nothing. He was shocked.

“I cannot divulge my source, but you may trust me that it is reliable.” The duchess had a brief, ironic smile that faded into a moment of harsh void. Then her expression was once again astute and elegant.

“I see,” said Stuart.

“Your brother had one of the best tables in all of England. So I understand that you’ve come into quite an asset in acquiring his cook. But I advise you to be leery of having such a woman in your household.”

“Thank you, Madame. I shall proceed with extreme prejudice.”

She nodded and withdrew.

For most of his trip home, Stuart was preoccupied with the dowager duchess’s revelation, that Bertie had come close to marrying Madame Durant. It was only as the carriage turned onto Cambury Lane that he began to assess what precisely Her Grace had been trying to warn
him
away from. It was not as if
he
would marry Madame Durant, under any circumstances.

He was not Bertie. Bertie’s ancestry could not be challenged. Bertie could marry down and remain every inch the gentleman. Stuart, who must prove at each turn that all the commonness of his mother’s blood had been eradicated from him, could only marry up—as in the case of Lizzy, whose maternal grandfather had been a viscount.

He didn’t bother to add “except for
her
”—because she had been the exception to every rule in his life.

As he alit before his house, he realized just how strange the exchange with the dowager duchess had been. His engagement had been announced in the papers earlier in the day; he couldn’t offer to marry Madame Durant if he tried. Furthermore, Her Grace had all but acknowledged that a cook of Madame Durant’s caliber was a most useful asset—not only for him, but for Lizzy in establishing her position as a hostess. And yet she still exhorted him to get rid of Madame Durant, in a manner that was almost urgent for the cool, laconic duchess.

He wondered what Madame Durant would think were she to know that there was such interest in her humble person in the highest spheres of Society.