Page 32 of Private Arrangements
Camden had no choice but to believe him. Lord Frederick's answer brimmed with the kind of clarity born of the deepest conviction. He ignored the stab of pain in his chest. “Other than that?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Love is an unreliable emotion. What is it about Lady Tremaine that makes you think you won't regret marrying her?”
Lord Frederick swallowed. “She is kind, wise, and courageous. She understands the world but doesn't let it corrupt her. She is magnificent. She is like . . . like . . .” He was lost for words.
“Like the sun in the sky?” Camden prompted, sighing inwardly.
“Yes, exactly,” said Lord Frederick. “How. . . how did you guess, sir?”
Because I once thought the same. And sometimes still think it.
“Luck,” answered Camden. “Tell me, young man, have you ever considered that it might not be easy being married to a woman like that?”
Lord Frederick looked perplexed, like a child being told that therewassuch a thing as too much ice cream, when he had only ever been allowed a few spoonfuls at a time. “How so?”
Camden shook his head. What could he say? “Do not mind the rambling of an old man.” He offered his hand again. “I wish you the best of luck.”
“Thank you, sir.” Lord Frederick sounded both relieved and grateful. “Thank you. I wish you the same.”
May the better man prevail.
The reply rose nearly to the tip of Camden's tongue before he realized what he was about to say and swallowed it whole. He couldn't possibly have meant anything close to that. He couldn't possibly even have thought it. He had no use for her. He did not want her back. It was but the flotsam of his psyche, washed ashore in a sudden surge of masculine possessiveness.
He nodded at Lord Frederick and a few other men, retrieved his hat and walking stick, and exited the club into the midst of a fine afternoon. It was all wrong. The sky should be ominous, the wind cold, the rain fierce. He would have welcomed that, welcomed the drenching discomfort and isolation of an icy downpour.
Instead, he must endure the mercilessly beautiful sunshine of an early summer day and listen to birds chirp and children laugh as all his carefully constructed rationales threatened to crumble about him.
She was wrong. It wasn't about Theodora. It had never been about Theodora. It was always abouther.
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 haveyouknow 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.”
