“I won't thank you,” she said. She had only surliness left for defense.
“I've done nothing worthy of a thank-you,” he said. “Good night, Lady Tremaine. Until tomorrow night.”
Chapter Eighteen
25 May 1893
Mrs. Rowland greeted Langford, His Grace the Duke of Perrin, with a welcome that was noticeable for the absence of the effusive, sycophantic warmth she plucked out of thin air so easily. Not that one could find fault with her hospitality. But whereas she had once been eager—indeed, greedy—for any furtherance of their acquaintance, this evening she'd metamorphosed into a walking embodiment of correct politeness. Even the soft, pastel gowns she favored had been replaced by a relentless black, like the crepe of a widow in first mourning.
She received him in a parlor lit as brilliantly as the Versailles. So many candles blazed that he wondered if some parish church wasn't missing its altar. The windows facing the country lane were open, the dimity curtains only half drawn. Any passerby could clearly see the entire interior of the room.
Was she so eager to advertise her increasing familiarity with him? Possibly. But the path outside was lightly used during the day and barely trod at night. She might as well have painted herself a sign—The Duke of Perrin calls at this estimable residence—and then planted it facedown in her garden.
“Would you care for something to drink?” she asked. “Tea, pineapple water, or lemonade?”
He was fairly certain that no one had offered him lemonade since he turned thirteen. And it did not escape his attention that she gave him no choice of spirits.
“A cognac would do very well.”
Her lips thinned, but she apparently couldn't quite summon up the wherewithal to deny a duke a simple request of beverage. “Certainly. Hollis,” she said to her butler, “bring a bottle of Rémy Martin for His Grace.”
The servant bowed and left.
Langford smiled in satisfaction. There, that was better. Lemonade indeed. “I trust your trip to London was rewarding?”
She laughed, a sound both startled and inauthentic. “Yes, I suppose it was.”
She touched the cameo brooch she wore at her throat. He could not help staring at the contrast of her white fingers against the stark, light-devouring crepe. The skin on her hand, though delicate, lacked the succulence and translucency of first youth. He was reminded that she was, indeed, several years older than him, a woman approaching fifty. Granny Snow White.
But damned if she wasn't more beautiful than a bevy of nubile girls, more beautiful even than herself at age nineteen. As a rule, gorgeous women aged worse than plain ones—they had the greater fall. She, however, had acquired, somewhere along the way, a self-worth that had little to do with her beauty yet adorned her better than pearls and diamonds—an underpinning of substance beneath her still-lovely skin.
“I had the unexpected pleasure of meeting your cousins at the theater,” she said. “Lady Avery and Lady Somersby were kind enough to invite me to sit in their box.”
The significance of her statement did not immediately register. So she ran into Caro and Grace—a lot of people did, to their delight or chagrin, depending on whether they received juicy gossip or were probed three fingers deep for it. Then it dawned on him. Mrs. Rowland here hadn't had any idea at all of the person he had been before his present incarnation as the reclusive, practically asexual scholar.
And what would they have told her? Probably the bitch fight, the fire, and the time he hired all of Madame Mignonne's girls. They were far from the worst sins he had ever committed, but they ranked high in notoriety. And the virtuous—though opportunistic—Mrs. Rowland was shocked and dismayed enough to temporarily shelve her idol-worshipping mien and her breathless voice.
Truly, as if he could be deterred from more nefarious intentions by a few open windows and fifteen yards of reproachful black crepe, he who had successfully lifted a number of mourning skirts in his day, and sometimes before open windows too.
Not that he entertained any such designs concerning Mrs. Rowland. Had they met twenty years previously, well, it would have been quite another story. But he had changed. He was now aged and tame.
On most days.
“I trust they regaled you with stories of my youthful indiscretions,” he said. “I'm afraid I haven't led the most exemplary life.”
Obviously she hadn't expected him to confront the issue head-on. She attempted a nonchalant wave of her hand. “Well, what gentleman is without a few peccadilloes to his name?”
“Just so.” He nodded with grand approval at her sudden insight. “The intemperance of summer leads to the ripe maturity of autumn. Thus it has always been, thus it always will be.”