May the better man prevail.
The reply rose nearly to the tip of Camden's tongue before he realized what he was about to say and swallowed it whole. He couldn't possibly have meant anything close to that. He couldn't possibly even have thought it. He had no use for her. He did not want her back. It was but the flotsam of his psyche, washed ashore in a sudden surge of masculine possessiveness.
He nodded at Lord Frederick and a few other men, retrieved his hat and walking stick, and exited the club into the midst of a fine afternoon. It was all wrong. The sky should be ominous, the wind cold, the rain fierce. He would have welcomed that, welcomed the drenching discomfort and isolation of an icy downpour.
Instead, he must endure the mercilessly beautiful sunshine of an early summer day and listen to birds chirp and children laugh as all his carefully constructed rationales threatened to crumble about him.
She was wrong. It wasn't about Theodora. It had never been about Theodora. It was always about her.
Gigi was giving Victoria trouble.
“Duke of Perrin.” She frowned. “How do you know him?”
This was not the reaction Victoria had expected from Gigi. She had mentioned the duke only most incidentally, while trying to persuade Gigi to take some time away from London. “He happens to be my neighbor. We met on one of his daily walks.”
“I'm surprised you allowed him to introduce himself to you.” A maid in a white shirt, black skirts, and a long bib apron came by and filled their glasses with mineral water. Victoria had arranged for them to meet at a ladies' tea shop. She didn't trust Gigi's servants not to gossip. “I thought you usually stayed well away from cads and roués.”
“Cads and roués!” Victoria cried. “What does that have to do with His Grace? He is very well respected, I will have you know.”
“He had a near-fatal hunting accident some fifteen years ago. After that he retired from society. And I will have you know that until then he was the veriest lecher, gambler, and all-around reprobate.”
Victoria dabbed at her upper lip with her napkin to hide her wide-open mouth. The duke had been her neighbor in her youth. And he was her neighbor now. But she had to admit that she had no idea what he had done with himself during the twenty-odd years in the middle.
“Well, he can't be any worse than Carrington, can he?”
“Carrington?” Gigi stared at her. “Why are you comparing him to Carrington? Are you thinking of marrying him?”
“No, of course not!” Victoria denied hotly. The next instant she wished she hadn't, because Gigi's eyes narrowed with suspicion.
“Then what are you doing, inviting him to dinner?” Her voice turned chillier with each word. “Tell me you aren't planning some lunacy to make me into the next Duchess of Perrin.”
Victoria sighed. “It can't hurt, can it?”
“Mother, I believe I have told you already that I am going to marry Lord Frederick Stuart once I'm divorced from Tremaine.” Gigi spoke slowly, as if to a very dull child.
“But you won't be divorced for a while yet,” Victoria pointed out reasonably. “Your feelings for Lord Frederick might very well have changed by then.”
“Are you calling me fickle?”
“No, of course not.” Oh, dear, however did one explain to a girl that her intended had less brains than a chipmunk? “I'm only saying that, well, I don't think Lord Frederick is the best man for you.”
“He is a good, gentle, and kind man of absolutely no vices. He loves me very much. What other man can be better for me?”
Crumbs. The girl was daring her. “But you must consider this carefully. You are a clever woman. Can you really respect a man who does not possess the same perspicuity?”
“Why don't you just come out and say you think he is dense?”
Oh, stupid girl. “All right. I think he is dense, denser than Nesselrode pudding. And I can't stand the thought of you being married to him. He is not good enough to carry your shoes.”
Gigi stood up calmly. “It is good to see you, Mother. I wish you a pleasant stay in London. But I regret I cannot come to Devon next week, the week after, or the week after that. Good day.”
Victoria resisted the urge to put her face into her hands. She was bewildered. She had been so careful not to mention Camden or to criticize Gigi on the petition for divorce. And now she couldn't state the obvious concerning Lord Frederick either?
Gigi arrived home fuming. What was wrong with her mother? A millennium had passed since Gigi had come to see the utter meaninglessness of a title. But still Mrs. Rowland cleaved to the illusion that a strawberry-leaf coronet cured all ills.
She went in search of Croesus. Nothing and no one soothed her the way Croesus did, with his patient understanding and constant affection. But Croesus was neither in her bedchamber nor in the kitchen, where he occasionally went when his appetite returned.