Page 73 of Private Arrangements
“I shall have to search for it,” she said.
Addleshaw bowed. “Allow me to take leave of you now, Lady Tremaine.”
The small sapphire glittered mutedly as Gigi turned the ring between her fingers. Camden had bought it for her. And she'd been floored. Not by the ring itself, but by him, by the overwhelming symbolic meaning of the gesture.He loved her.
Her wedding ring she'd donated long ago to the Charity for the Houseless Poor, but this ring she'd kept—out of sight, in a box that also contained the desiccated remains of all the flowers he'd ever brought her and a faded length of blue ribbon that had once been a sweet, crushed bow on Croesus.
Now he desired the ring back. Why revisit the most painfully sweet part of their past now? Why not demand that Croesus be returned too while the poor old dog still had a breath left?
Was he deliberately trying to provoke her?
But what if he wasn't provoking her? What if he really just wanted the ring back? Well, then. He'd still get what he wanted. He only had to fish it out of her—
She clamped a hand to her mouth. It was hardly the most sexually shocking thought she'd entertained in her life. What astounded her was the waywardness and mischief of it, all ebullient optimism when she'd believed herself morose and listless.
She loved him. If she'd been willing to violate the principles of decency in her youth, why couldn't she do something that was perfectly within the bounds of good behavior—namely, showing up naked on his bed? Only think of the endless sexual possibilities.
She tittered a little into her hands. She was a naughty woman, assuredly. And Camden had adored her for it.
There. Nothing more to be said for it. She was going to New York City. And she would not return until she could inform Mrs. Rowland that she was at last going to be a grandmother.
Chapter Twenty-seven
2 September 1893
Victoria's weekly tea with the duke happened only twice. After that, it became two times a week. For a week and half. Toward the end of that particular week, somehow they ended up in animated conversation by the fence of her front garden as he walked past her cottage. Then he invited her to come along with him, she accepted, and they'd shared the walk each day thereafter.
There were advantages to being an almost hag, Victoria reflected. In her youth she'd been fervently concerned that everyone should perceive her perfection. She mouthed only the most agreeable platitudes and ventured not a single opinion that wasn't as bland as porridge for the invalid.
Amazing what changes thirty more years of life brought about in a woman. Why, only the day before, as they toured her private garden, she'd declared His Grace blind for not seeing that the friendship between Achilles and Patrocles was more than friendship—what man would be so grieved by a mere friend's passing that he'd refuse to let the corpse go to the funeral pyre?
He, on the other hand, dug in his heels and defended the thesis of friendship. Romantic love as Western civilization currently understood it did not emerge until the Middle Ages. Who was to say that masculine friendship, in an epoch before a man saw home and hearth as the anchor of his existence, couldn't have been deeper and more emotional?
Today, on a short stroll through his gardens, they'd disagreed on a host of topics already, from the merits of the metric system to the merits of George Bernard Shaw. The duke felt no compunction in calling a few of her opinions preposterous. She, to her own pleasant surprise, gave no quarter and labeled some of his views as downright asinine, in exactly so many words, to his face.
“I've never heard so many contrary opinions in my entire life,” he remarked as they neared the house.
“Alas,” she teased him, “what a sheltered life you've led, sir.”
He looked startled for a moment. “A sheltered life? I suppose you aren't entirely incorrect. But still, shouldn't a genteelly raised woman such as yourself at least make an effort to agree with me?”
“Only if I'm out to ensnare you, Your Grace.”
“You are not?” He turned a baleful gaze on her.
She batted her eyelashes. “Why would I want to put up with a man as disagreeable as yourself when I already have all the advantages of wealthanda future duke for a son-in-law?”
“For now.”
“Oh, have you not heard, then? My daughter has released Lord Frederick from their engagement. Furthermore, she departed this morning on theLucaniafor New York City, where her husband resides.”
“And that has slaked your blood thirst for a duke of your own?”
“Temporarily,” she said modestly.
He harrumphed. The duke had a soft spot for all things ludicrous. Between the two of them, her not-quite hunting of him had become an ongoing joke.
She smiled. Despite his dissolute past, his ever-present hauteur, and his great fondness for intimidating lesser mortals, he'd turned out to be quite a decent chap. His attention flattered, but the gratification extended far beyond the stroking of her vanity. She took genuine pleasure in his company, in the thoughtful, honorable man he had made of himself.
