Private Arrangements (12 page)

Gigi was giving Victoria trouble.

“Duke of Perrin.” She frowned. “How do you know him?”

This was not the reaction Victoria had expected from Gigi. She had mentioned the duke only most incidentally, while trying to persuade Gigi to take some time away from London. “He happens to be my neighbor. We met on one of his daily walks.”

“I'm surprised you allowed him to introduce himself to you.” A maid in a white shirt, black skirts, and a long bib apron came by and filled their glasses with mineral water. Victoria had arranged for them to meet at a ladies' tea shop. She didn't trust Gigi's servants not to gossip. “I thought you usually stayed well away from cads and roués.”

“Cads and roués!” Victoria cried. “What does that have to do with His Grace? He is very well respected, I will have you know.”

“He had a near-fatal hunting accident some fifteen years ago. After that he retired from society. And I will have
you
know that until then he was the veriest lecher, gambler, and all-around reprobate.”

Victoria dabbed at her upper lip with her napkin to hide her wide-open mouth. The duke had been her neighbor in her youth. And he was her neighbor now. But she had to admit that she had no idea what he had done with himself during the twenty-odd years in the middle.

“Well, he can't be any worse than Carrington, can he?”

“Carrington?” Gigi stared at her. “Why are you comparing him to Carrington? Are you thinking of marrying him?”

“No, of course not!” Victoria denied hotly. The next instant she wished she hadn't, because Gigi's eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“Then what are you doing, inviting him to dinner?” Her voice turned chillier with each word. “Tell me you aren't planning some lunacy to make me into the next Duchess of Perrin.”

Victoria sighed. “It can't hurt, can it?”

“Mother, I believe I have told you already that I am going to marry Lord Frederick Stuart once I'm divorced from Tremaine.” Gigi spoke slowly, as if to a very dull child.

“But you won't be divorced for a while yet,” Victoria pointed out reasonably. “Your feelings for Lord Frederick might very well have changed by then.”

“Are you calling me fickle?”

“No, of course not.” Oh, dear, however did one explain to a girl that her intended had less brains than a chipmunk? “I'm only saying that, well, I don't think Lord Frederick is the best man for you.”

“He is a good, gentle, and kind man of absolutely no vices. He loves me very much. What other man can be better for me?”

Crumbs. The girl was daring her. “But you must consider this carefully. You are a clever woman. Can you really respect a man who does not possess the same perspicuity?”

“Why don't you just come out and say you think he is dense?”

Oh, stupid girl. “All right. I think he is dense, denser than Nesselrode pudding. And I can't stand the thought of you being married to him. He is not good enough to carry your shoes.”

Gigi stood up calmly. “It is good to see you, Mother. I wish you a pleasant stay in London. But I regret I cannot come to Devon next week, the week after, or the week after that. Good day.”

Victoria resisted the urge to put her face into her hands. She was bewildered. She had been so careful not to mention Camden or to criticize Gigi on the petition for divorce. And now she couldn't state the obvious concerning Lord Frederick either?

Gigi arrived home fuming. What was wrong with her mother? A millennium had passed since Gigi had come to see the utter meaninglessness of a title. But still Mrs. Rowland cleaved to the illusion that a strawberry-leaf coronet cured all ills.

She went in search of Croesus. Nothing and no one soothed her the way Croesus did, with his patient understanding and constant affection. But Croesus was neither in her bedchamber nor in the kitchen, where he occasionally went when his appetite returned.

Suddenly she felt a shiver of fear. “Where is Croesus?” she asked Goodman. “Is he—”

“No, madam. He is well. I believe he is with Lord Tremaine in the conservatory.”

So Camden had come back from wherever he had been the past week. “Very good. I'll go rescue him.”

The conservatory stretched nearly the entire width of the house. From the outside, it was an oasis of verdancy, even on the dreariest days of winter—the vines and fern fronds weaving a green cascade through the clear glass walls. From the inside, the structure offered an unimpeded view of the street beneath and the park beyond.

Camden sat sprawled on a wicker chair at the far end of the conservatory, his arms stretched over the back of the chair, his stockinged feet propped up on a wicker ottoman before him. Croesus lay snoozing next to him.

Camden had his profile to her, that strong, flawless profile that had so reminded her of a statue of Apollo Belvedere. He glanced away from the open windows at the sound of her approach, but he did not rise. “My lady Tremaine,” he said with mock courtesy.

She ignored him, scooped up Croesus—who wriggled and snorted, then settled into the crook of her elbow and went on with his nap—and turned to leave.

“I was introduced to Lord Frederick earlier this afternoon, at the club,” said her husband. “It was an edifying encounter.”

She whipped around. “Let me guess. You found him to possess all the intelligence of a boiled egg.”

Let him dare to agree with her. She was quite in the mood for slapping someone. Him.

“I did not find him either eloquent or worldly. But that was not the thrust of my remark.”

“What was the thrust of your remark, then?” she asked, suspicious.

“That he would make some woman an excellent husband. He is sincere, steadfast, and loyal.”

She was stunned. “Thank you.”

His gaze returned to the outside world. A pleasant breeze invaded the conservatory, ruffling his thick, straight hair. Carriages on exodus from the park crammed the street below. The air echoed with coach-men's calls, cautioning their horses and one another to pay heed to the logjam.

Apparently, their little exchange was over. But Camden's remarkable compliment to Freddie had bred an opportunity that she could not let pass. “Would you do the honorable deed and release me from this marriage? I love Freddie, and he loves me. Let us marry while we are still young enough to forge a life together.”

In his perfect stillness she sensed a sudden stiffening.

“Please,” she said slowly. “I beg you. Release me.”

His gaze remained fixed on the daily tide of phaetons and barouches, of England's vanity and pride on parade. “I didn't say he would make
you
a good husband.”

“And what would
you
know about making anyone a good husband?” She regretted the words as soon as they left her lips. But there was no taking them back now.

“Absolutely nothing,” he admitted without hesitation. “But at least I saw a few of your faults. I thought you interesting and appealing in spite of them, or perhaps because of them. Lord Frederick worships the ground you walk on because you have the kind of strength, resilience, and nerve he can only dream of. When he looks at you he sees only the halo he has erected about you.”

“What's wrong with being perfect in the eyes of my beloved?”

His eyes locked with hers. “I look at him and I see a man who thinks we are going to be as chaste as God and Mary in this house. Does he know you are protecting him from the truth? Does he know that a few big lies in the service of love are nothing to you? That your strength extends to remorseless ruthlessness?”

She'd have spat on the floor if she hadn't been raised by Victoria Rowland. “I look at you and I see a man who is still stuck in 1883. Does he know that ten years have passed? Does he know that I have moved on, that he is the relentless, ruthless one now? And does he really think I plan to tell the man I love that I'm to be impregnated by another, against my wish?”

Someone laughed in the distance, a shrill, feminine giggle. Croesus whimpered and shifted in her arms. She was crushing him with the stiffness of her grip. She let out a shaky breath and forced her muscles to relax.

He pressed two fingertips to his right temple. “You make it sound so ugly, my dear. Don't you think I deserve to get something out of this marriage before you traipse into your happily-ever-after?”

“I don't know,” she said. “And I don't care. All I know is that Freddie is my last chance for happiness in this life. I will marry him if I have to turn into Lady Macbeth and destroy all who stand in my path.”

His eyes narrowed. They were the dark green of a nightmare forest. “Warming up to your old tricks?”

“How can I fail to be unscrupulous when you keep reminding me that I am?” Her heart was a swamp of bitterness, at him, at herself. “We will begin our one year tonight. Not later. Not whenever you finally feel like it. Tonight. And I don't give a ha'penny if you have to spend the rest of the night puking.”

He merely smiled.

Chapter Fourteen

January 1883

G
igi jerked awake in the small hours of the morning, gasping and covered in cold perspiration. In her dream, she had been running in her nightgown, chasing after something in the dark, screaming, “Come back! Come back to me!”

Was it an ill omen, this dream? Or was it her conscience, festering in the dungeon of the past three weeks, finally breaking out of captivity and, spitting mad, coming to settle the score with her?

She touched the engagement ring Camden had given her. It was reassuringly snug on her finger, the gold band as warm as her own skin, the facets of the sapphire cool as silk. At the foot of her bed, Croesus snorted in his padded wicker tray. She scooted until her head was level with his. He smelled clean and warm. She took hold of one of his paws and felt some of the fear drain out of her.

She let herself breathe again. All was well. And who needed a conscience when she had happiness by the bushel?

Right?

Hell did not begin to describe it.

Camden stood at the center of a maelstrom of joy and goodwill, drowning. The ceremony. The unending congratulations. The wedding breakfast. The flash and bang of the photographer recording the occasion for all posterity. So much laughter. So much cheer. So much genuine pleasure all around. He felt a complete fraud, a bigger fraud than she, if that was possible.

Several times his will nearly broke. People were happy for him. For them. Mrs. Rowland had tears in her eyes. So did Claudia. Surrounded by a sea of tulle and organza, with Briarmeadow decked to the rafters in daffodils and tulips, as fragrant as the first day of spring, they thought it a fairy tale still, the one marriage of convenience out of thousands so fortunate as to become a blissful, devoted union. The weight of his deception choked him.

It was she, in the end, who salvaged his iniquitous intentions, she with her radiance that struck him a physical blow every time he looked upon her. Every ebullient, cocksure smile from her was a little death for him, every mirthful giggle a stab in the heart.

Even so, he almost couldn't.

After the reception, they traveled fifteen miles to another Rowland house nearer to Bedford for their wedding night. The two of them, alone—if one didn't count Croesus—in the oppressive confines of the brougham. Giddy and loquacious from the champagne, his new wife strategized the surprise reception that they would throw for his friends.

The apartment her agent had found for them in the Quartier Latin, overlooking Rue Mouffetard, had ten rooms. How many people did he think could fit into such an apartment? Would her governess-taught French suffice for the evening's conversation? And if they served foie gras and caviar, perhaps his friends might not notice that they had hardly any furniture?

Her childish enthusiasm for the life that they would never share clawed at him with a ferocity he did not want to understand. An incandescent light illuminated her eyes, a light of hope and fervor. It made her intoxicating, enchanting, beautiful, despite
everything
he knew, despite the effrontery and selfishness that were the warp and woof of her corrupt femininity.

He wanted to violate her then, to assert his power over her in the crudest, foulest manner, to crush her and snuff that lovely light. It would have been malevolent, but honest, to a degree.

He held back because of his own reciprocal corruptness. It would have been too easy for her. Shattering, yes, but shattering all at once. He did not want that. He did not want her to recognize the beast in him. He wanted her to panic, to despair, but to still want him, still think him the most perfect man that ever lived.

That was how he would go on tormenting her, after his physical departure from her life. A baroque plan, byzantine even, a plan that both pleased and shamed him.

He awaited only the night, this one grotesque, terrible night.