Page 28 of Private Arrangements
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—
