She’d composed her resignation letter and a polite, if terse, response to Mr. Somerset, regretting that she could not go to London, as she would be in Paris instead. Then, letters in pocket, she’d gone down to Mrs. Boyce’s office. But when Mrs. Boyce had asked what she could do for Verity, instead of handing in the letters, she had made a request for jars of preserved vegetables and fruits from Mrs. Boyce’s stillroom to be crated and shipped to Mr. Somerset’s town house.
She’d spent the next day directing her underlings in packing the pots, pans, knives, and other tools she needed to cook in an unfamiliar kitchen—never once, somehow, breathing a word to Letty Briggs, her lead apprentice, that Letty would be the one to head the kitchen in Mr. Somerset’s town house. She made arrangements with the head gardener for the fresh hothouse produce that he would send four times a week to London, a city notorious for its problematic supply of greengrocery. She also informed Becky and Marjorie that they would decamp to London, not trusting that Becky would successfully resist Tim Cartwright in her absence, or that some of the friskier undergardeners wouldn’t take advantage of Marjorie’s limited understanding of the ways of the world.
She’d believed, almost to the end, that Letty would go in her stead. And then, at five o’clock in the morning, mere hours before they were to board their train, she realized, as she opened her valise and tossed in her things, that she had no intention of letting anyone go in her stead.
She was a moth drawn to flame, except the lucky moth didn’t know any better. She did. And she couldn’t stop herself.
“At what time does Mr. Somerset like his dinner?” she asked.
The world was better behaved when she cooked. In the kitchen she was the mistress of her own fate—or at least it was easier to pretend so.
“I can’t remember the last time Mr. Somerset dined at home,” said Mrs. Abercromby, sounding faintly embarrassed. “He takes his dinners at his club. But I’m sure he means to dine at home more now that he has a proper cook.”
“He will be dining out tonight also?”
“I asked him this morning before he left,” answered Mrs. Abercromby. “He said you should have some time to settle in.”
Settle in. How could she ever settle in here, in the house he would share with another? But Verity said nothing else. When teacups had been drained and biscuits swallowed, she followed Mrs. Abercromby up the service stairs to the attic.
Her room was small, papered in dark brown to better hide the notorious effects of London’s air, and cold despite the fire already burning in the grate. Opposite the door, the bed lay against the far wall, where the roof leaned in too close to do anything but lie down beneath the four-pane window. To her left was a desk and a chair. To her right, under a speckled mirror, stood a wash cabinet, with a pitcher and a basin on top of it and a chamber pot likely concealed inside.
It was no worse than what she’d expected. She’d shared a smaller room with two other girls when she’d worked under Monsieur David. But she did not want to live in his attic, did not want to be his servant, did not want reality to further chisel away at her hallowed memories.
And yet here she was. How long would she stay? Until Christmas? Until the wedding? Until he and his new wife had filled their nursery with beautiful, dark-haired infants?
She opened her valise and fumbled for her work dress. She had a pressing need to be in the kitchen.
“I’m sure Mr. Somerset is most kind. But I’m here already and I might as well cook,” she said to Mrs. Abercromby. “At what time does the staff dine?”
Instead of taking his dinner at the Reform Club, as he usually did, Stuart dined at the splendid Belgrave Square town house of the Duke of Arlington, more familiarly addressed as Tin by his friends—from the years when he’d borne the courtesy title of the Marquess of Tinckham.
Stuart had run into Tin at the bathing pool—they belonged to the same swimming club. After a friendly half-mile race, Tin had mentioned that his mother wished to see Stuart; would Stuart mind coming over for dinner?
The Arlingtons, having produced two prime ministers in the last one hundred fifty years, were one of the country’s most politically prominent families. Tin’s late father, the tenth duke, had been a man of enormous persuasion, by virtue of both his oratorical prowess and his unimpeachable personal rectitude. Tin, however, lacked the gift. His heart was in the right place, but he had neither the nerve nor the charisma to herd others to his point of view.
Many a time Stuart wished that the late duke had lived to see the Liberals return to power, and that he was on hand to prevail against his more reluctant colleagues in the House of Lords. Failing that, he wished that the late duke’s seat in the House of Lords, instead of passing to his son, had gone to his widow instead, for the Dowager Duchess of Arlington was—and had always been—the shrewdest politician in the entire clan.