Page 55 of Private Arrangements
The duke, upon first glance, did not appear either a scholar or a reprobate—no book dust or buxom doxies clung to him. But he was certainly imposing as an aristocrat of the highest rank, with none of the golly-would-you-believe-my-good-luck mellowness that characterized the current Duke of Fairford, her father-in-law. No, this was a man born to lord over lesser beings and who'd done it authoritatively for the entirety of his adult life. A man who could cow half of society into hushed awe with his sheer ducalness.
Gigi was not immediately impressed. Despite an upbringing focused exclusively on becoming a duchess, she seemed to have inherited a democratic streak from her plebeian ancestors. “Good evening, Your Grace.”
“Lady Tremaine, you have decided to join us after all.” His corresponding wry amusement made it evident that he was not without a clue as to the purpose behind the dinner.
The surprise was her mother, who didnothave a democratic bone in her body. Gigi would have expected some reverence on her part—and triumph that she'd finally maneuvered Gigi and the duke into the same room—but Mrs. Rowland's demeanor was rather one of grim determination, as if she were on a mission to Greenland, a grueling journey with nothing but barrenness at the end.
Equally intriguing was the duke's deportment toward Mrs. Rowland. A man such as he did not know how to benice.He probably tolerated his friends and treated everyone else with condescension. Yet as he complimented Mrs. Rowland on her flower arrangements, he displayed a solicitude and a delicacy Gigi hadn't sensed in him before.
Camden arrived late, his hair still slightly damp from his bath. He'd returned from the seashore only thirty minutes ago.
“May I present my son-in-law, Lord Tremaine,” said Mrs. Rowland, in a rare bit of archness. “Lord Tremaine, His Grace the Duke of Perrin.”
“A pleasure, Your Grace,” said Camden. Despite his hurried toilette, he seemed more settled into the role of affable, oblivious host than anyone else. “I've had the pleasure of readingEleven Years Before Ilium,a most illuminating work.”
The duke raised one black brow. “I had no idea my modest monographs could be found in America.”
“As to that, I wouldn't know either. I received a copy from my esteemed mother-in-law, when she was in London last.”
The duke turned his monocled gaze to Mrs. Rowland. He'd have resembled aPunchcaricature if it weren't for his commanding presence and his sardonic self-awareness.
Mrs. Rowland shifted her weight from one foot to the other, then back again. Gigi's eyes widened. The men in the parlor might not understand the significance of that seemingly unremarkable motion. But Gigi knew that Mrs. Rowlandneverfidgeted. She could hold as still as a caryatid, and for about as long.
“My mother is a learned acolyte of the Blind Bard,” said Gigi. “You will find few women, or men for that matter, sir, more thoroughly knowledgeable concerning all things Homeric.”
This revelation startled the duke again, in a way that felt more complicated than simply a man's surprise that a woman would know something in his field of expertise. He inclined his head in Mrs. Rowland's direction. “My compliments, madam. You must tell me how you came to develop a passion for my arcane subjects.”
Mrs. Rowland's response was a high castle wall of a smile. Camden glanced Gigi's way. Apparently she wasn't the only one to have noticed something highly irregular.
Hollis announced that dinner awaited. Mrs. Rowland, with almost obvious relief, suggested that they pair off and proceed to the dining room.
For Victoria, about the only silver lining to the cumbersome evening was that the duke didn't immediately succumb to Gigi's charms.
She'd fretted about Gigi's looks throughout her daughter's girlhood, as the child stubbornly refused to blossom into the kind of flawless beauty Victoria had been but instead grew unfashionably tall, with wide shoulders and a challenging gaze that was Victoria's despair. Then, a few years ago, after Victoria at last realized she no longer needed to train her eyes on the girl's gown and coiffure for signs of imperfection, she noticed something quite confounding.
Men stared at Gigi. Some of them gawked. At balls and soirées, they had their eyes glued to her as she walked, talked, and occasionally—largely with indifference—glanced their way. When Victoria mentally distanced herself and studied her daughter as a stranger would, she was shocked to realize just how obscenely attractive Gigi might be to the masculine sex.
She had no words to describe the kind of primal allure Gigi exuded, an incandescent sensuality that surely didn't come from Victoria. It made Victoria feel old, past her prime, her vaunted beauty a distant second place to Gigi's youth, luminosity, and glamour.
Gigi looked as well as she ever did in a dinner gown of vermilion velvet, the skin of her throat and arms glowing in the lambent light like that of a Bouguereau nymph. The duke spoke to Gigi as he ought to, making the obligatory grunts concerning the relative proportion of precipitation to sunshine in recent days in both London and Devon. But unlike Gigi's husband, who glanced at her over his wineglass with every other forkful, Perrin kept most of his attention on the plate before him, gravely tasting the successive courses ofsouped'oseille, filet de sole à la Normandie,and duckà la Rouennaise.
“Allow me to compliment you, madam, on your chef,” the duke suddenly looked up and said. “The food is nowhere near as terrible as I expected.”
Victoria was absurdly pleased. Ever since the night when they'd gambled over chocolates and she'd practically told him to drag her upstairs and ravish her lonely old bones, she'd been on pins and needles.
She could repeat to herself only so many times that, in desperate embarrassment at being found out, she'd made up the whole thing on the spot. The only problem was that she was a terrible impromptu liar. Without hours and days of prior preparation, she either blurted out the truth or bungled so badly the odor of her mendacity could be scented a furlong away.
Had she told the inadvertent truth instead? Was this whole exercise in folly simply an opening for her to grab the duke by his lapels and make him take notice of her at long last? He hadn't entirely believed her, but he didn't disbelieve her enough. There was something about truth, the visceral ferocity of it, that seeped under and around incredulity, no mattter how well-founded and watertight.
“Thank you,” she said, “though I cannot return the compliment on your tact.”
“Tact is for others, madam.” As if to underscore his point, he glanced at Gigi and Camden and said, “Forgive the curiosity of a dotard who retired from Society many years ago, but is it commonplace nowadays for a couple about to divorce to be on such apparently friendly terms?”
“Quite so,” answered Camden, his tone as smooth and creamy as a dish of flan. He looked at Gigi. “Wouldn't you say, my dear?”
“Without a doubt,” said Gigi dryly. “We do loathe scenes, don't we, Tremaine?”
Even the duke was left momentarily speechless by this bravura performance. He moved on to a safer topic. “I understand you've quite the Midas touch, Lord Tremaine.”
