She replied, a witty observation on the current spate of popular hostesses. He probably heard and understood her just fine, because he said something in return and she laughed rather brightly. But he had no idea what either of them had said.
His guests arrived on the Besslers’ heels. Stuart gave dinner parties often enough, usually catered by a capable woman named Mrs. Godfrey, whose cooks took over his kitchen for a day and whose height-matched footmen served in the evening alongside Durbin. The hired footmen were present, circulating trays of amontillado sherry and vermouth. The usual collection of tails-clad men and bejeweled women occupied his drawing room, chatting genteelly with one another.
But tonight it felt utterly unreal, as if he’d walked into the middle of an elaborate tableau and must play along. All the while the woman he loved slaved belowstairs, with no idea that their time together would come to an abrupt end.
His heart struggled and pleaded like a wrongly accused man. Don’t do this. Don’t do this. But he had no other choice. Love was a thing of no consequence to a man in his position—only duty counted, duty alone, duty above all.
She was mounting a production aimed to dazzle. He had been informed that the menu was her interpretation of the best-known feast in recent history, the meal enjoyed by Czar Alexander II, the then-future Czar Alexander III, and the King of Prussia at the Café Anglais in 1867—otherwise known as the Dinner of the Three Emperors.
He had not asked her who she thought needed such impressing, and now he would never have the chance. The kind of dinner she used to produce daily for Bertie would have quite sufficiently amazed his guests. Such elegance as she intended for tonight was beyond the experience of most of his guests, with the possible exception of the Arlingtons.
The arrival of the Dowager Duchess of Arlington and her son, the current duke, caused a stir. As Mr. Gladstone’s deputy, Stuart had various dealings with the peers of the realm who took their seats in the House of Lords. He also occasionally attended politics-centered country house gatherings. But on a purely social level, he did not quite move in the same rarefied spheres. The invitation issued to the Arlingtons had been more a whim on his part than anything else, since the dowager duchess had seemed so particularly aware of Madame Durant. He’d been more than a bit surprised that she had accepted.
Lizzy, to her credit, betrayed no sign of discomfort as she greeted the Arlingtons, despite having once been told by the dowager duchess not to look to her son for a husband. Stuart, on the other hand, could only wish that he’d not invited the too-sharp duchess. If she breathed one word of his Verity, his facade of normality would crumble.
At the appointed hour, Durbin announced dinner. Stuart offered his arm to the dowager duchess, and they proceeded to the dining room, where murmurs of “Oh, my” and “Good gracious” immediately broke out.
Stuart had epergnes and vases and candelabra enough. But they remained in storage tonight. Instead, pairs of Corinthian columns marched down the center of the dining table. Between the columns were four-foot-tall reproductions of classical statues. There was Artemis the Hunter, alert and confident, her left hand in the antlers of a young buck, her right hand reaching toward her quiver. There was Venus de Milo, beautiful and sensuous. And nearest to the head of the table there was the Winged Victory of Samothrace, marred and maimed, but triumphant all the same.
He’d seen many an elaborate table in his time, the majority pompous and misguided, a few with a genuine spark of artistry. But he’d never encountered what felt to be a defiant table. True, she was French, and what she used were some well-known pieces from the Louvre. Nevertheless, it was a statement on herself—her reputation, her sensuality, her fearlessness.
The gentlemen waited for the ladies to take their seats. The ladies waited upon the dowager duchess. The dowager duchess stood unmoving, staring at the sugar paste reproductions that mimicked the quality of marble quite uncannily.
When she at last took her seat to his right, Stuart thought he heard her murmur, “She hasn’t changed.”
“I beg your pardon, Madame?” asked Stuart.
The dowager duchess shook her head. “It was nothing.”
The meal commenced with potage imperatrice and potage fontanges. In all fairness, Stuart thought perhaps he should have attached a note of warning to the invitations: beware the food. But who would have paid him any mind? To his guests, the only perils of dinner were indigestion and weight gain.