He had Claudia's carriage stopped, on the pretext of an errant cuff link. While conducting the make-believe search, he found out obliquely from the coachman to which hotel Claudia and Pedar had gone for dinner. And then, instead of calling on Mrs. Allen—a young, wealthy, attractive widow from Philadelphia who'd been strongly hinting all throughout the Atlantic crossing that they should repair somewhere private posthaste—he took himself across town to his wife's hotel.
He was assured that she was indeed alone, attended by an entourage that consisted of precisely one maid. That the only guests she'd received were Claudia and Pedar.
The driving question behind his restiveness answered, he should have been satisfied. Yet he found himself speaking to the hotel clerk of kroner, as in how many kroner the clerk stood to gain if he'd discreetly pass along information of interest concerning Lady Tremaine. Setting up clandestine arrangements to spy on her, to put it bluntly.
It was not difficult to discover her itinerary, as she relied on the hotel to supply her with transport. The very next morning he began receiving reports of her comings and goings. Within a few days he knew what she ate for breakfast, which monuments she'd visited, at what hour she took her evening bath, even where she'd stopped to buy some embroidered linen tablecloths.
Yet the more he knew, the more he had to know. How did she look? Had the years been kind to her? Was she the same woman he'd left behind? Or had she changed into someone unrecognizable?
He broke an engagement to dine with Mrs. Allen when he learned that Gigi would make an evening visit to Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen's premier amusement park. He had enough control left to not go anywhere near her during the day. But perhaps, just perhaps, he could catch a glimpse of her at night and still remain in the shadows.
He walked the acres of Tivoli Gardens until he thought he must already be in his dotage. At last he spotted her on the grand carousel. She was laughing, holding on to the gilded post of her wooden horse for dear life, her long white skirts streaming with the rotation of the carousel and the summer breeze off the sea.
She looked well. Better than well. Delighted.
In the bright orange glow of the park's artificial lights, she was something out of an old Norse fairy tale, elemental, dangerous, and downright crackling with sensual energy. More than a few men in the crowd stared at her, eyes round, mouths half open.
He gazed at her until he could no longer stand the asphyxiation in his chest. He didn't know what he'd been thinking. Somehow he had thought—had hoped, in the baser chambers of his heart—that she might appear wan and wretched beneath an impassive facade. That she yet pined for him. That she was still in love with him, despite all evidence to the contrary.
This woman did not need him.
He turned and walked away. He stopped the reports and the lunacy. He tried to forget that he'd gawked at her like a hungry mutt with its front paws upon the windowsill of a delicatessen. He made up to Mrs. Allen for his neglect and inattentiveness.
And then came the encounter on the canal.
Mrs. Allen looked very fetching in her peach-and-cream Worth gown. The scenery behind her, however, held its own. The houses that lined the canal were painted in unabashedly spirited colors, the hues of a fashionable Englishwoman's wardrobe: rose, yellow, dove gray, powder blue, russet, and puce. As the sun approached its zenith, the canal glittered, ripples of silver beneath the boats that plied the waterways.
“Oh, my goodness gracious!” exclaimed Mrs. Allen, latching on to his elbow. “You must look at that!”
He turned away from the storefront display of model ships he'd been perusing and looked in the direction she pointed.
“That open window on the second story. Can you see the man and the woman inside?” Mrs. Allen giggled.
Obligingly, he scanned the windows on the opposite bank, until he felt the weight of someone's gaze on him.
Gigi!
She sat at the bow of a pleasure craft a stone's throw away, under the shade of a white parasol, a diligent tourist out to reap all the beauty and charm Copenhagen had to offer. She studied him with a distressed concentration, as if she couldn't quite remember who he was. As if she didn't want to.
He looked different. His hair reached down to his nape, and he'd sported a full beard for the past two years.