Delicious (45 page)

A pretense he’d upheld assiduously in the years since.

“I didn’t like her when I found her,” he said to Verity. “I never went back to see her again. When she died, when the people who cleared out the house sent her paintings to me, I had them put away. I didn’t want to look at them. And then, after we talked about Bertie, I thought of her too. It was because of me that she’d had such a hard life, but she never once blamed me.”

Verity came and put her arms about him. “I’m glad you forgave her.”

“I can only hope she forgave me too.”

“I know she did.” She hugged him tight. “I’m a mother too. And we forgive everything.”

Something in him unclenched. He kissed the top of her head. “I’ll take you to see her grave sometime.”

She laid her cheek against his. “Yes, we’ll do that.”

Later that evening, as they lay in bed, warm and snug under the covers, they talked of their future.

“All this white is lovely. But we shall need to be much more practical in our own place,” she said.

With a pang he realized that she wasn’t talking about his house, since she could not live here openly with him. No one would take him to task for keeping a mistress, but when that mistress was Verity Durant, everything must be done with the utmost discretion.

He watched her carefully for signs of unhappiness, but her eyes were bright as she spoke of her plans. She would now finally have the time to write her magnum opus, a book of recipes and methods for professed cooks. Perhaps she’d poach a few of the kitchen staff from Fairleigh Park, train them some more, and open a tea shop that served authentic French and Viennese pastry. And later, when she had enough money, a school of cookery.

“You’ll have a carte blanche from me, you know,” he reminded her.

She smiled, a little ruefully. “I’m no longer used to spending anyone’s money except my own. And besides, I like the security of an income.”

“You are afraid of being at my mercy?”

“It’s more pride than fear, I hope. I’m not ashamed—not anymore—of having such skills that would earn me a good living.”

He brought her hands to the light and looked at them. She allowed him. The old scars and burn marks had faded with age, though there were new ones. Her calluses had become less pronounced and her skin much more supple than he remembered.

“I remembered your hands. I thought of them every time I held a soft hand untroubled by work.”

“Now you tell me. I would have ceased my religious application of hand salve if I’d known,” she said, her eyes twinkling.

He kissed her palm, tentatively, and was rewarded with a sharp intake of breath on her part. So the sensitivity of her hands hadn’t changed. He glanced at her, mischief on his mind.

“Oh, dear,” she said, pressing her palm to his lips again. “
Now
I’m afraid of being at your mercy.”

Chapter Twenty-two

T
he man who’d seduced Lizzy two nights before rose from his breakfast table. “Lizzy?! What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to see you, of course.” She smiled through clenched teeth.

His expression was one of confusion and incipient worry. “You came all the way from Lyndhurst Hall by yourself? When? Does your father know where you are?”

The landlady left. Lizzy pushed the door firmly shut. She’d come the night before, fabricating some excuse about a bosom friend in need. Her father, alarmed—he’d had to announce the end of her engagement and she was not acting herself—had insisted on accompanying her. So this morning, while her father was in his bath, she’d ordered the footman who usually followed her on her morning walks to stay in the house, then left, climbing into the first passing hansom.

“You cur! You dirty, rotten scoundrel!” She gave free rein to her anger. “What games are you playing with me?”

“What are you talking about, Lizzy?”

He looked so gorgeous and so sincerely puzzled she didn’t know whether to hit him or to cry.

“My former fiancé told me about your inheritance. He said I have nothing but ‘ease and plenty’ to look forward to in my future. Why do I hear about such a thing from him rather than you? What exactly are your intentions toward me?”

“To marry you, of course. I was just in the middle of writing to my youngest brother, to tell him the good news.”

He went to the writing table and came back with a sheet of paper. She skimmed it. Various words jumped out at her.
Bliss. Soon. Marry. Bessler. Wonderful. Happy.

“And the license is in my room, if you still don’t believe me,” he said. “And I would have left directly after breakfast for Lyndhurst Hall to speak with your father.”

She exhaled. The worst fear in her calmed. But still she was upset. “That answers only one of my questions. Do you have any idea how wrenching this decision has been at times for me—to think of all the friends I’d have to give up because they would turn out to be fair-weather friends, and how my father would always have to worry because I’d married a poor man? You could have eased my mind at any point, and you didn’t.”

“It was never my intention to—”

She didn’t let him finish. “You don’t think very highly of me, do you? You thought that if I knew about the money then my decision would be based solely on that.”

“No! No!” He shook his head vigorously. “That is not true. I haven’t told anyone other than Matthew and our baby brother, and Mr. Somerset knows only because he was my lawyer in the matter. My great-uncle—the one who put me in his will—is one of the most spectacular eccentrics of our time, fully capable of changing his mind at the last minute and leaving everything to his dogs—which he had done at one point, but the dogs died.”

“Excuses, excuses. You didn’t tell me because you didn’t trust me.”

“No, quite the contrary. I
was
tempted to tell you. But had I told you, I would have grossly misrepresented my situation. My great-uncle may be eighty-eight, but he is as healthy as a horse and could very well live another twenty years. Goodness knows, he’s already outlived two sets of beneficiaries to his will—and that’s not counting the dogs. How could I promise you ‘ease and plenty’ when neither might be forthcoming for years, perhaps decades? And how would you feel when nothing materializes? So I had to trust and hope that you would choose me, even given my current poverty.”

She almost laughed when he mentioned the dogs again. Everything he said made sense—and was all easily verifiable via Stuart. She had to remind herself that she was upset with him.

“You could have at least given me a hint.”

“I wanted it to be a surprise. If I told you, I’d become anxious for it to come true—and I’m rather fond of the old bloke and don’t really want him to give up the ghost yet.”

She couldn’t help smiling this time. He really was an adorable man. And now her cheeks warmed at having jumped to such far-fetched conclusions. “Well, now that’s all cleared up between us, I’d better return to my house before the servants report my suspicious activities to my father and worry him.”

“Your father is in London?”

“Yes.”

“Then wait two minutes; I’ll come with you. We’ll fetch him and get married right away, since we already have the license.”

Her jaw dropped. She grabbed him by the shoulders. “I think I have formed an attachment to you. You know, what the English call a desire to have symphonic concerts with someone at all hours of the day?”

He smiled. “And I love you too, darling.”

Verity and Stuart made tea and toast for breakfast. After breakfast, they returned to bed and made love again. Toward midmorning he got up, washed, and came back to the bedchamber to dress.

She lolled on the bed, still naked, and watched him. “My goodness, you look so handsome and so unbearably respectable. Why don’t you shag me fully dressed right before you leave?”

“You’ve an amazingly rotten mind, my dear Madame Durant.”

“I’ve had years to let it putrefy in fervent lust of you, my love,” she said. “Now, where do you think you are going dressed like that?”

“To see my solicitor and put you in my will.”

She set her chin on her palm. “What are you giving me?”

“Everything.”

That made her sit up straighter. “Not Fairleigh Park too.”

“Yes, Fairleigh Park too.” He shrugged into his waistcoat.

Her mouth opened wide. “You will petition Parliament to break entail?”

He chuckled. “You are thinking of titular land, my love. Fairleigh Park is not that. The entail on it isn’t even a primogeniture. My father gave Fairleigh Park to Bertie for the remainder of Bertie’s life, and to Bertie’s issue upon Bertie’s death. But he also provided that should Bertie die childless, the estate will pass to me. I can renew the entail in my own will, but now I won’t.”

“Still, Fairleigh Park has always remained within the Somerset family.”

“You are my famly now,” he said.

“You’ll make me cry, you know,” she murmured.

He came and kissed her. “For giving you things when I’ve no more use for them? You are too easy to please.”

It had begun to snow during the night. Several inches of snow had already accumulated on the ground. She watched him leave from the bedchamber window and wondered how her heart could hold so much love without levitating her clean off the floor.

When he’d disappeared in the direction of Buckingham Palace Road, she quickly washed, dressed, and made ready to go out and buy provisions for their meals. The doorbell rang just as she reached the ground floor. She opened the front door. The cold air that gushed in was refreshingly clean for London; beyond the portico, snow fell luxuriantly.

“Is Madame Durant at home?” said a young, redcheeked footman. Flecks of snow clung to him.

“I am she.”

The footman bowed. “Mum, Her Grace the Dowager Duchess of Arlington requests your company.”

She couldn’t quite believe her ears. She looked at the footman again. But of course she should have recognized his livery the moment she opened the door. And she hadn’t even noticed the crest on the brougham parked by the curb—her mind had been entirely on happier matters.

The dowager duchess worked fast—despite her uneasy thoughts the day before, Verity had not believed the dowager duchess would infer everything quite so soon. Her heart, warm and toasty a second ago, felt impaled by an icicle. She had to forcibly remind herself that the dowager duchess’s power lay in the denial of privileges and recognitions—that she, Verity, had none left to be taken away.