Last season, Mrs. Rowland, in a mood of largesse, had invited the countess and Miss von Schweppenburg to attend a garden party. They'd declined—with a longish note full of regret from Miss von Schweppenburg—as they'd have departed London already.
Gigi had thought it strange that a team with nothing but advantageous marriage on their mind would leave before the most fruitful time of year for proposals: the end of July. She was, however, not surprised to later hear of rumors that pressing debts had forced the von Schweppenburgs to leave town sooner than they'd wished. Perhaps they'd underestimated the cost of a London season. Perhaps such was their usual practice and this time they misjudged the patience of their landlord and creditors.
She hadn't cared then to find out what exactly was the case. And she didn't now. The important thing was that Lord Tremaine's intelligence on Miss von Schweppenburg's whereabouts and goings-on at any given point in time wasn't much better than Gigi's. And if Miss von Schweppenburg's waffling stance was any indication, he was by far the more reliable correspondent of the two.
Part of her recoiled at the direction of her thoughts. Beyond this point there be monsters. But just as a locomotive hurtling at full speed could not be stopped by a mere wooden fence across the tracks, her thoughts rumbled on, to the defiant clickety-clack of if only . . . if only . . . if only . . .
If only Miss von Schweppenburg were already married. Or if only Lord Tremaine came to believe, somehow, that such was the case.
Do not consider such a thing, begged her good sense. Do not even think it.
But her good sense was no match for the wrenching pain in her heart, for her crushing need of him. She could bear everything, if only she could have him for a year, a month, a day.
If he would not offer her this opportunity, then she'd create it herself, by fair means or foul, at whatever cost, come plague or locust.
Chapter Seven
13 May 1893
The hansom cab stopped. “Yer house, guv,” said the driver.
A long line of landaus and clarences filled the curb up and down from the Tremaine town house. His wife was having herself a party, it seemed, with some thirty, forty people in attendance. Camden had been gone four days to visit his parents. Was she celebrating his disappearance off the face of the earth already?
The butler, though distressed to see his return, hid it well under a layer of huffy solicitude. Milord must be tired. Would milord care for a bath? A shave? Dinner delivered to his room? Camden half-expected an offer of laudanum too, to tumble milord into a quick, insensate slumber, so that milady's soirée could continue unhindered.
“Are more people expected?” he asked. They would be, if there was to be a ball.
“No, sir,” Goodman answered stiffly. “It is only a dinner.”
Camden consulted his watch. Half past ten. The guests should be in the drawing room by now, both the men and the women, getting ready to take their leave in the next half hour in order to make the rounds of balls and soirées dansantes.
He pushed open the double door to the drawing room and saw his wife first, splendid in a surfeit of diamonds and ostrich feathers. Next to her stood an exceptionally handsome man, who, with a frown on his face, seemed to be admonishing her. She listened to him with an expression of exaggerated patience.
Slowly, one by one, then by twos and threes, the guests realized who had come amongst them, even though none of them had ever met him. The hum of conversation faded, until even she had to glance at the door to see what had caused the hush.
Her mouth tightened as she registered his presence, but she let not a second pass before putting on a bright, false smile and coming toward him. “Camden, you are back. Come, do meet some of my friends. They are all dying to make your acquaintance.”
Such breathtaking insolence. Such cheek. Such bollocks. He hoped Lord Frederick liked wearing skirts. Camden took his wife by the elbows and kissed her lightly on the forehead. He had heard that he had the most courteous marriage known to man. Far be it for him to argue otherwise. “Of course. I would be delighted.”
Following her lead, her guests received him amicably, though most of them didn't quite achieve her smoothness. The handsome man from her tête-à-tête she introduced last, by which time he was standing by a tall brunette as uncommonly fine-looking as himself.
“Allow me to present Lord Tremain,” said his wife. “Camden, Lord and Lady Wrenworth.”
So this was Lord Wrenworth, The Ideal Gentleman, according to Mrs. Rowland, and Gigi's erstwhile lover.
“A pleasure, my lord,” said Lord Wrenworth, with all the creamy innocence of a man who had never cuckolded Camden.