He didn’t bother to add “except for her”—because she had been the exception to every rule in his life.
As he alit before his house, he realized just how strange the exchange with the dowager duchess had been. His engagement had been announced in the papers earlier in the day; he couldn’t offer to marry Madame Durant if he tried. Furthermore, Her Grace had all but acknowledged that a cook of Madame Durant’s caliber was a most useful asset—not only for him, but for Lizzy in establishing her position as a hostess. And yet she still exhorted him to get rid of Madame Durant, in a manner that was almost urgent for the cool, laconic duchess.
He wondered what Madame Durant would think were she to know that there was such interest in her humble person in the highest spheres of Society.
Dearest Lizzy,
My goodness me, what a long memory you have. All right, you naughty girl, here it is—though I really shouldn’t even mention any such thing to an unmarried young lady.
Mr. Marsden was caught with his professor. In flagrante delicto.
Oh, dear, merely writing those words makes me a bit light-headed. I don’t know if you’ve met him—why are you interested all of a sudden?—but what a darling, beautiful boy he was in those days. I was a bit in love with him myself. Imagine my shock when I learned the truth!
There, now I’ve discharged my oath. You must write me back soon and tell me all about the engagement, or I shall never forgive you for making me find out in the papers first.
The twins won’t stop coshing each other with handy objects. I can only hope they’ll be able to tolerate as much pain when they grow up.
Love,
Georgette
Lizzy whistled. In flagrante delicto. With his professor. Oh, dear indeed. This was much worse—and much better—than anything she could have imagined.
Would people living in glass houses never stop throwing rocks? For him to try to endanger her engagement because he thought she had Sapphic inclinations! Truly, she’d have expected some solidarity instead.
But now she knew his dark little secret. A rich, delicious secret. She smiled and imagined how she would amuse herself when he arrived at her house on the morrow to help with her nuptial campaign. Imagined his surprise, dismay, and fear, because now she had the absolute upper hand.
No wonder he used to regard her with such dirty glee. She was quite in the mood to rake him over with that same knowing, salacious look.
But as she practiced the perfect arch sneer, she was aware of a different and more disturbing response. She felt let down. Disappointed. She supposed that she had implicitly assumed Mr. Marsden’s antagonism to be fueled at least in part by a frustrated attraction to her.
Old habits died hard. Some part of her—the part that used to be able to ferry a man from across a ballroom with one look—still persisted in thinking of herself as irresistible, her glances and smiles as perilous as daggers and quicksands.
Oh, well. Oh, the vanity.
Stuart’s town house, like any other self-respecting urban domicile in Britain, did its very best not to smell of food, even though it did not have the luxury of separating the kitchen from the main dwelling, an advantage of the country house. Instead, the kitchen was relegated to the basement, with both the kitchen door and the green baize door that led to the basement shut tight at all times. Food served to the master was never carried about in the open, but only via the service stairs or the dumbwaiter that connected the kitchen with the dining room.
So it was impossible for Stuart, sitting in the tranquillity of his study, to smell anything other than the still-drying ink on his notes and the cup of cold coffee sitting on his desk. But he did, and had been for hours.
Fried sole, golden and perfect. Roasted venison, tender and gamy. A dish of potato, rich with butter and cream. And, of course, a tremendous dessert, something dramatic, bourbon flames over forbidden fruit.
He’d managed to work, but he’d been on the edge of outright restlessness. As the clock struck quarter past one, he capped his pen, blotted his notes one last time, and rose.
But instead of climbing up two stories to bed, he pushed open the heavy green baize door and went down into the basement. He made this trip often enough, a candlestick in hand, for a quick bite of something to eat when he worked late and the rest of the household was long abed.
Usually his kitchen smelled of dampness and inexpertly roasted joints. Tonight it smelled like a hungry beggar’s dream: yeast, herbs and aromatics, simmering meaty broth, and a curl of sweetness around the edge of the warm humidity.