It was foolish to carry such hopes about the dowager duchess. But this wasn’t a bad day for hope. It was a foolish hope too that had brought her and Stuart together again. She could afford to be hopeful today, no matter how unlikely the hope.
She put on her coat and climbed into the waiting carriage. There was an ermine carriage blanket inside, along with a brazier and a warmed brick for her feet. Gingerly she settled the carriage blanket over her knees—she hadn’t touched anything quite so fine or expensive in years. Perhaps her hope wasn’t so impossible, then: If the dowager duchess meant to give Verity a hard time, she need not have provided such comforts along the way.
The carriage left the curb, its motion smooth and easy, entirely unlike that of Verity’s lurching heart. After she’d run away, she’d seen the dowager duchess only once, during the first months of her apprenticeship under Monsieur David. It had been at the wedding of a childhood friend of hers, and she’d been among the multitudes outside the church that morning, drawn by the pomp and pageantry of an aristocratic marriage. Seeing her old friend walking down the steps of the church arm in arm with her new husband had been devastating enough. Seeing the then-not-yet-dowager duchess nod with approval at the happy couple had crushed Verity’s spirits for weeks.
It was less than half a mile from Cambury Lane to Belgrave Square. All too soon the carriage stopped. She took a deep breath and told herself not to be afraid. She was a grown-up woman who’d done decently for herself. And on this day when her heart overflowed with goodwill, she would be happy to see the dowager duchess—no matter what, they were still family.
As befitting their exalted station, the town house of the dukes of Arlington was an imposing structure, seven bays wide. Its portico spanned four bays and rose three stories high on columns that her arms could not entirely encircle. The carriage had stopped under a porte cochère. Verity was whisked out, past the marble entrance hall, then up the ormolu staircase into the grand drawing room.
Before she could quite take in all the changes that had been made to the drawing room—Where had the Gainsborough gone? Didn’t the floor used to be par-queted in a starburst pattern, rather than a diamond one? And had the ceiling always been coffered?—a raspy but still imperious voice said, “You may leave us, Sullivan.”
The voice came from a thin, black-clad figure at the center of the room. Verity did not recognize the white-haired woman whose eyes and mouth were deeply lined with age. Then she did. She blinked in shock at the ravages the years had wrought upon the Dowager Duchess of Arlington: She’d become an old woman.
The ebony walking stick right next to her was yet another sign of the encroachment of old age. Verity’s heart tightened. Had it really been that long?
“Duchess,” she said softly. “You sent for me?”
“You seem to have a special affinity for your employers,” said the dowager duchess without preamble.
A familiar pain replaced the tenderness in Verity’s heart. The dowager duchess might have aged, but she had not mellowed. A lecture it would be, then, whether or not Verity deserved it.
“Not true, Madame. Or I would have had the Marquess of Londonderry in my pocket,” she answered, her tone almost as sharp as the dowager duchess’s. She was surprised to realize she no longer quivered before the dowager duchess, the way she had when she was sixteen.
The dowager duchess chortled coolly. “A special affinity for your Somerset employers, then.”
“Well, the elder brother was quite a man and the younger brother is too spectacular for words.”
“Yes, the younger Mr. Somerset is a very fine, very remarkable man. Your uncle, who was secretly a democrat at heart, had a great fondness for him. We would have been pleased had we a son like him.”
This was generous praise indeed. “Then you cannot be too displeased that I have taken up with him.”
“On the contrary. I am rarely so offended. Mr. Somerset’s thoughtlessness in the matter astonishes me. He breaks up a perfectly sensible engagement in order to keep, as his mistress, a woman of your notoriety, on the eve of one of the most important votes in our lifetime, with the leader of the Irish already in a perilous position from his own ill-considered conduct.
“The fate of this government hinges on the Irish Home Rule vote. If it fails, the government will fall and we shall be relegated to the Opposition for an eternity—and I have worked too long and too hard to bring the Liberals back to power to allow anyone to endanger the government in this cavalier manner.”
“Is it quite necessary to bring matters of the state into our discussion, Madame?” Verity dared to ask. “I fail to see what my rapport with Mr. Somerset has to do with the destiny of ruling coalitions.”