Page 74 of Private Arrangements
Inside the house, the tea service had been set out in the south parlor, with a footman ceremonially warming the teapot. A fire crackled in the grate, shedding a golden tinge on the walls.
“How remiss of me, Your Grace,” she said as the servants retreated. “I have been so busy informing you of your intellectual shortcomings that I forgot to wish you a happy birthday.”
“You and two hundred of my closest friends,” he said wryly. “I used to throw a birthday bacchanal for myself every year, right here at Ludlow Court.”
“Do you miss a good bacchanal?” How could one not, she thought? She'd never had one and sometimes she still missed it.
“Occasionally. But I don't miss the aftermath. The wallpaper in this particular room had to be changed six times in eleven years.”
She glanced at the walls. The damask wall covering was of a different pattern—acanthus rather than fleur-de-lis—but care had been taken to find a near exact match of the rich celadon green background she remembered, so that the room remained much as it was thirty years ago when she'd come for tea and wild dreams. “It's remarkable how little the wallpaper has changed, for all that.”
“Trust me, it didn't look anything like this during my more debauched days. The wallpaper featured other . . . themes.”
He smiled. Her heart thudded. Her almost hag-hood notwithstanding, she couldn't help being rampantly curious about the latent scoundrel in him. The least reference to his former wickedness had her in a lather. Accompanied by one of those alluring smiles . . . well, she could count on not sleeping much tonight.
“I had the old wallpaper duplicated exactly after I retired from Society. I had everything duplicated, from memory and old photographs. But I found I couldn't really stand it.” He took a sip of his coffee—he'd given up the pretense of drinking tea several weeks ago, admitting that he couldn't stomach the stuff. “So I made a few changes to suit myself.”
“The past does exert a terrible toll, doesn't it?” she said quietly.
He turned an unused teaspoon by its handle, down, and up again. His silence was his answer. In his self-imposed exile there was a strong element of punishment. But it needed not be that way. Not anymore.
“My daughter keeps a private investigator on retainer.” Gigi and her modern, progressive ways. She hoped the duke didn't inquire too closely as to why. “I availed myself of his services on something that concerns you.”
His eyebrow rose. “If you wish to know how Lady Wimpey's bed caught on fire, you've but to ask me.”
A month ago she'd have blushed. Today she didn't even blink. “Actually, I'm more interested in those items of foreign manufacture and iniquitous nature to which Lady Fancot was apparently partial.”
“They were only velvet-lined handcuffs—foreign-made, perhaps, but hardly iniquitous,” he said.
“Good gracious, what is wrong with that woman?” said Mrs. Rowland indignantly. “Isn't a nice strong silk scarf good enough for her?”
He almost sprayed coffee all over the tablecloth. Good grief.This womanconstantly forced him to reevaluate his opinion on what being a virtuous woman entailed. Apparently, sexual creativity in a proper, earnest English marriage was not half as dead as he'd believed.
“But I digress,” she said, reverting to an impeccable demureness that hid God knew what other experiences and inclinations, a contrast rich in properties aphrodisiacal. His younger self would have expended enough wherewithal to wage three wars to possess her already. His current self did exactly the same, but only in his mind.
“Now, where was I? Oh, yes. I had the detective look into the state of Mr. Elliot's marriage.”
He wouldn't quite compare her announcement to being shot in the chest, having lived through the latter—but it came perilously close. He felt as he had then, standing dumbly in place, looking down at his hand clasped just to the right of his heart, blood seeping out between his fingers.
How could she, of all people, not understand that he could not bear to learn the truth of what had happened to the Elliots' marriage? That whatever peace and tranquillity he'd been able to derive from his hermit's life had depended on his not knowing, on hoping that he had not brought about the unhappiness of an entire family?
Perhaps she sensed the magnitude of shock in him. Her face turned somber. “I shouldn't have, I know.”
He glared at her. “Lady, your specialty is undertaking that which you shouldn't. Rest assured you'll face vituperation such as you've never imagined.” He could have gone on longer, informed her of his exquisite command of invectives, and depicted in graphic detail the shrunken, pockmarked state of her soul after he was done with her. He didn't. There was no point in postponing the inevitable, though God knew he wanted to. “Now tell me what your detective has learned.”
“They are fine,” she said, smiling sweetly.
His imagination was playing tricks on him. He thought she said they were fine. “The truth, if you will,” he said.
“My detective worked in the Elliot household for several weeks and reported with confidence that Mr. and Mrs. Elliot get along very well, not just with civility but with fondness.”
“You are making it up, aren't you?” he mumbled. How could it be? How could any human association that had gone so wrong right itself? Was he in error after all and Man not quite as doomed as he'd long gloomily believed?
“You need not depend solely on what I say. The detective's name is Samuel Ripley. He worked for the Elliots for three weeks last month, under the name Samuel Trimble, as an under-butler. What I tell you is but a summary of his written report, which arrived yesterday on the late post. It is a richly detailed document, with all overheard exchanges and eyewitness accounts painstakingly recorded.
“My daughter is nothing if not prescient at employing people with the utmost dedication. It is clear to me that Mr. Ripley spent an inordinate amount of time at keyholes and upper-story windows. Why, there are sections of the report that I hastily skimmed over, to preserve my womanly delicacy.”
His heart constricted. His throat constricted. The dark cloud of culpability had hung over his head for so long, he'd forgotten the pure, beatific light of a clear conscience.
