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“And what does Her Grace plan to do with my company?” she said, with a bite to her tone—she’d done nothing wrong, she didn’t need to humbly suffer a lecture from the dowager duchess.

The footman looked nonplussed. Presumably those whose presence the duchess requested never asked why, but hopped into the nearest carriage and presented themselves before Her Grace at the earliest opportunity.

“I’m sure I don’t know, mum,” said the footman, sincerely indifferent.

She could say no. But what if the dowager duchess didn’t want to lecture her? What if she only wanted to see Verity for some reason? Wasn’t it often said that as people settled into old age, they looked more leniently upon those who had earlier given them great offense?

“If you will wait a minute,” she said.

It was foolish to carry such hopes about the dowager duchess. But this wasn’t a bad day for hope. It was a foolish hope too that had brought her and Stuart together again. She could afford to be hopeful today, no matter how unlikely the hope.

She put on her coat and climbed into the waiting carriage. There was an ermine carriage blanket inside, along with a brazier and a warmed brick for her feet. Gingerly she settled the carriage blanket over her knees—she hadn’t touched anything quite so fine or expensive in years. Perhaps her hope wasn’t so impossible, then: If the dowager duchess meant to give Verity a hard time, she need not have provided such comforts along the way.

The carriage left the curb, its motion smooth and easy, entirely unlike that of Verity’s lurching heart. After she’d run away, she’d seen the dowager duchess only once, during the first months of her apprenticeship under Monsieur David. It had been at the wedding of a childhood friend of hers, and she’d been among the multitudes outside the church that morning, drawn by the pomp and pageantry of an aristocratic marriage. Seeing her old friend walking down the steps of the church arm in arm with her new husband had been devastating enough. Seeing the then-not-yet-dowager duchess nod with approval at the happy couple had crushed Verity’s spirits for weeks.

It was less than half a mile from Cambury Lane to Belgrave Square. All too soon the carriage stopped. She took a deep breath and told herself not to be afraid. She was a grown-up woman who’d done decently for herself. And on this day when her heart overflowed with goodwill, she would be happy to see the dowager duchess—no matter what, they were still family.

As befitting their exalted station, the town house of the dukes of Arlington was an imposing structure, seven bays wide. Its portico spanned four bays and rose three stories high on columns that her arms could not entirely encircle. The carriage had stopped under a porte cochère. Verity was whisked out, past the marble entrance hall, then up the ormolu staircase into the grand drawing room.

Before she could quite take in all the changes that had been made to the drawing room—Where had the Gainsborough gone? Didn’t the floor used to be par-queted in a starburst pattern, rather than a diamond one? And had the ceiling always been coffered?—a raspy but still imperious voice said, “You may leave us, Sullivan.”

The voice came from a thin, black-clad figure at the center of the room. Verity did not recognize the white-haired woman whose eyes and mouth were deeply lined with age. Then she did. She blinked in shock at the ravages the years had wrought upon the Dowager Duchess of Arlington: She’d become an old woman.

The ebony walking stick right next to her was yet another sign of the encroachment of old age. Verity’s heart tightened. Had it really been that long?

“Duchess,” she said softly. “You sent for me?”

“You seem to have a special affinity for your employers,” said the dowager duchess without preamble.

A familiar pain replaced the tenderness in Verity’s heart. The dowager duchess might have aged, but she had not mellowed. A lecture it would be, then, whether or not Verity deserved it.

“Not true, Madame. Or I would have had the Marquess of Londonderry in my pocket,” she answered, her tone almost as sharp as the dowager duchess’s. She was surprised to realize she no longer quivered before the dowager duchess, the way she had when she was sixteen.

The dowager duchess chortled coolly. “A special affinity for your Somerset employers, then.”

“Well, the elder brother was quite a man and the younger brother is too spectacular for words.”

“Yes, the younger Mr. Somerset is a very fine, very remarkable man. Your uncle, who was secretly a democrat at heart, had a great fondness for him. We would have been pleased had we a son like him.”

This was generous praise indeed. “Then you cannot be too displeased that I have taken up with him.”

“On the contrary. I am rarely so offended. Mr. Somerset’s thoughtlessness in the matter astonishes me. He breaks up a perfectly sensible engagement in order to keep, as his mistress, a woman of your notoriety, on the eve of one of the most important votes in our lifetime, with the leader of the Irish already in a perilous position from his own ill-considered conduct.

“The fate of this government hinges on the Irish Home Rule vote. If it fails, the government will fall and we shall be relegated to the Opposition for an eternity—and I have worked too long and too hard to bring the Liberals back to power to allow anyone to endanger the government in this cavalier manner.”

“Is it quite necessary to bring matters of the state into our discussion, Madame?” Verity dared to ask. “I fail to see what my rapport with Mr. Somerset has to do with the destiny of ruling coalitions.”

“Do you so naïvely believe that your past will not reflect disastrously upon him? That it will not affect his effectiveness as the chief whip? He will lose Mr. Gladstone’s confidence.”

The dowager duchess studied Verity, her gaze level. “Power is perception, Vera. Mr. Somerset’s power rests in large part on the perception that he is a man who does not make mistakes. In you he has made a disastrous mistake.

“Do you have any idea the prejudice this man has faced and overcome in his lifetime? Do you understand the sheer miracle that he has wrought to rise to his present position, with the portfolio of the Home Secretary to be entrusted to him upon the passage of Home Rule? There are few other men in the party with the reputation, influence, and moral authority to match him. Until he gave in to your temptation, he was on his way to 10 Downing Street.”

“And you think I’m going to be the ruin of all that?” Verity said, a strong dose of scorn in her voice, although her heart was already sinking. The dowager duchess meant to take Stuart away from her.

“You
know
you will be the ruin of all that,” said the dowager duchess. “But it’s not too late yet. No one else knows. Stop this lunacy now. Leave. And you may yet preserve him for the highest office of the land. You know that is what he wants. That is what he has strived for all his life. Do not take it away from him with your selfishness.”

“I am not selfish,” Verity said, hating the note of defensiveness of her voice. “No more than you are.”

“That is not a good comparison, for I am, and have always been, extremely selfish,” said the dowager duchess, calm, serene. “But my selfishness does not imperil Mr. Somerset’s good name, nor does it undermine his future. Yours will do all that, and more.”

“I don’t believe you,” Verity said, trying to keep her voice level. The dowager duchess would exploit her emotions as weaknesses. “I have left him once already, for his sake. That was ten good years we could have had together. I will not leave him again.”

“You will ruin him, then?”

Verity hated that question, hated the implication of her culpability. “There has always been much at stake. He knows it better than anyone. This is the decision he has made in spite of all the reasons to the contrary. It is not my place to second-guess his choice.”

“It is folly on his part, and you know it better than anyone. You will hide behind his infatuation and be content to let him stumble. Have you no love for him?”

Verity’s anger rose bitter hot. “Don’t you dare question my love, you coldhearted witch!”

“But I do.” The dowager duchess was glacial and implacable. “Your love is detrimental to him. It will bring nothing but dishonor and disgrace upon him.”

“Say what you want. I will not leave him.”

“Very well, then. I had hoped you would see reason, but I must say I did not expect it. I will speak to Mr. Somerset directly—
he
has always been a man of logic and rationality.”

A black tide of fear rose in Verity. She remembered how respectfully he’d mentioned the dowager duchess’s name. The good opinion of this woman mattered to him. And her influence—the influence of the Arlingtons—carried tremendous weight in Liberal circles.

“I need to know one thing, Vera,” said the dowager duchess. “Will you let him go without further ado once he sees the light, or will you use tears and feminine wiles to make an already difficult situation even more difficult for him?”

Verity had never possessed
that
kind of feminine wiles. “I do not keep unwilling men about me,” she said between clenched teeth.

“Good,” said the duchess. “Then we understand each other.”

“I will see myself out,” said Verity.

“No, stay. Mr. Somerset will be here soon enough. You might as well listen to what he decides.”

Stuart was already on his way here? Verity barely had a chance to be surprised before tea was brought in, along with sandwiches and cakes. She walked to a window that overlooked the snow-covered square. It was still snowing, but the new snow was no longer beautiful to her eyes, only desolate: a vulnerable canvas to be dirtied and defiled by passing carriages and careless pedestrians.

Three men in top hats and black cloaks trudged across the square in the direction of Arlington House. Her heart arrested, until she realized that none of the men was him. Perhaps the dowager duchess’s minions wouldn’t find him, since he’d gone to neither of his offices. If Verity could locate him first, she could persuade him to leave on an impromptu trip with her—somewhere, anywhere—to stave off the dowager duchess’s grasp for just a few more days. But if the dowager duchess had had the house watched and him followed—

“Is it you who sends a bouquet of wildflowers to your uncle’s gravestone every year?” the dowager duchess interrupted her thoughts.

Verity turned around, astonished that the dowager duchess would address her on something so inconsequential. She was even more astonished to see that the dowager duchess had moved to a different chair, which allowed her to better observe Verity.

“Yes, I send the wildflowers,” she said, wary.

“I thought so. Only you would think to give him something like that.”

“He liked wildflowers.”

“Your uncle was very fond of you,” said the dowager duchess. “Sometimes I think he loved you better than any of his own daughters.”

Verity didn’t know what response the dowager duchess intended to provoke, so she said nothing. As she turned back toward the window, her gaze landed on the framed picture of a pleasant-looking young man. It took her some staring to realize that it was her little cousin, whom she’d loved as a brother, all grown up.

“How old is Tin now?” she asked.

“Twenty-eight August last.”

“Shouldn’t he have married already?”

“Sometimes he is in a hurry to marry. But then he realizes the advantage of patience.”

Verity glanced at the dowager duchess. “You mean you have rejected every girl he likes.”

“I want him to marry someone who loves him for who he is, rather than what he is.”

Verity chuckled bitterly. “That is an odd sentiment coming from you.”

“That has been my standard for the spouses of all my children. I’ve done very well by my daughters. I will do well by him too.”

There was a long silence. Then, because she’d worried too much about it, Verity blurted, “Why do you have my son watched? I would like you to stop.”

“He is my sister’s grandson. Do you think the adopted son of a gamekeeper would have found a place at Rugby without my interference? Or that his life there would have been tolerable without the rumors I originated concerning his sire?”

“You used him to threaten me.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You used him to keep me in line, so that I wouldn’t tell anyone who I was and embarrass you again, but I would never—”