Why had she never told him that she preferred the future to the past and rarely bothered about the meaning of life? She felt a rush of guilt. If she had, today Freddie probably would be engaged to Miss Carlisle, a woman with a clear conscience, rather than to Gigi, who, behind his back, allowed another man to have his way with her.
Could she claim martyrdom and higher purpose when she didn't unequivocally hate the swift coupling between Camden and herself? She hadn't even thought of poor Freddie until this morning.
She found Freddie pacing in the middle of the diminutive garden, having left his roost behind the rose trellis.
“Philippa!” He came forward and placed his evening jacket about her shoulders, enveloping her in his generous warmth and a strong waft of turpentine.
She glanced at him. “Have you been painting in your good clothes again?”
“No, but I spilled some sauce on myself at dinner,” he answered sheepishly. “The butler cleaned it. Did a very decent job too.”
She slid her knuckle against his cheek. “We really should have some jackets made out of oilcloth for you.”
“Wouldn't you know it?” he cried. “That's what my mother used to say.”
She started. Had she been patronizing? Or condescending? It hadn't felt that way.
“Do you know what Angelica said to me?” Freddie asked her gleefully. “She said a man my age ought to have more care. She also said that I'm dawdling because I'm scared my next work won't turn out any good, that I should get off my lazy posterior and put paint to canvas.”
They rounded the rose trellis and sat down on the discreetly placed bench, the one on which Miss Carlisle was supposed to receive her wedding proposals. Freddie chuckled. “I know you said she thinks well of me. But she certainly doesn't sound that way tonight.”
Gigi frowned. The only painting Freddie had finished in '92 hung in her bedchamber. She always asked about his progress on his next painting, but she'd never paid any substantial attention to his creativity, considering it little more than a hobby, a gentlemanly amusement.
Miss Carlisle saw it differently. Miss Carlisle saw Freddie differently. Gigi was happy to indulge Freddie's absentmindedness and artistic hesitations—as long as he adored her, she didn't care if he lolled on the chaise longue and ate bonbons from sunrise to sunset. But Miss Carlisle saw a diamond in the rough, a man who could make quite something of himself if he but put in the effort.
Was Gigi's affection for Freddie purer or more self-serving? Or perhaps, more to the point, wouldn't Freddie prefer to have made something of his talents?
Freddie rested his head against her shoulder and they fell silent, inhaling the moist air, heavy with the sweetness of honeysuckle. She'd always felt peaceful like this, with him leaning into her and her fingers combing through his fine hair. But today that tranquillity eluded her.
Was Camden right? Was Freddie's adulation of her all construed on mistaken assumptions? She shook her head. She would not think of her husband when she was with her beloved.
“Lord Tremaine was most charitable toward me yesterday,” sighed Freddie, instantly dashing her resolution. “He could have abused me a thousand ways and I'd have submitted to it.”
Gigi sighed too. Camden had garnered nothing but praises since his return. He was said to possess the refinement of a true aristocrat and the elegance of a Renaissance courtier. And it certainly didn't hurt that he looked the way he did. If he remained in England for much longer, Felix Wrenworth would need to surrender his honorary title of the Ideal Gentleman.
She wanted to warn Freddie about Camden. But what could she say? In the official version of their history, which Freddie accepted without question, she and Camden had agreed to live separately from the very beginning. She could not utter a word against Camden without exposing herself.
“Yes, that was very considerate of him,” she mumbled. And then he came home at night, set me against a bedpost, and stuffed me, dear Freddie.
“But are you certain he will agree to a divorce?” asked Freddie, with the innocent puzzlement of a child being told for the first time that the world was round.
Gigi immediately tensed. “Why shouldn't I be? He said so himself.”
“It's just that . . .” Freddie hesitated. “Don't mind me. I'm probably still flustered, that's all.”
She pulled away from him so she could speak to him face-to-face. “Did he say or do anything? You must not let him intimidate you.”
“No, no, nothing of the sort. He was a complete gentleman. But he asked me questions. He . . . tested me, if you will. And I, well, I don't know. I couldn't read him all that properly. But I thought—not that I'm often right in my thinking—I thought he didn't look like he'd be happy to let you go.”