Gigi took a deep breath and finished her tea. It was already cold, and too sweet—because Camden's ungloved hand had brushed hers when he passed the sucretière, and she didn't know two from four in the minute afterward. “What good does it do any of us to remember? I loved him then, I would not deny it. And perhaps he loved me too. But that is all in the past. He no longer loves me and I no longer love him. And if there are second chances going around, no one has offered me any, least of all Camden.”
“Don't you see?” cried Mrs. Rowland, exasperated, setting down her teacup with an uncharacteristic thud. A glob of milky brown liquid sloshed over the rim of the cup and spread into an astonishingly perfect circular stain on the embroidered tablecloth that Gigi had purchased during her ill-fated visit to Copenhagen. “That he is here in England, living in your house, being civil to you, persuading you to come with him to see me—all this, does it not mean anything to you? Does it have to be stated in so many words or carved on a stone tablet, for heaven's sake?”
Was it not enough that she had to struggle with it by herself? She did not need to hear it spelled out item by item by her mother, as if she were a dimwit chit from some Oscar Wilde play.
“Mother, you forget why he is here in the first place,” she said coolly. “We are divorcing. I have pledged my hand to Lord Frederick.”
Mrs. Rowland rose abruptly. “I will rest for a short while. It would not do for me to appear haggard before His Grace. But if you think that you love Lord Frederick a fraction as much as you love—not loved, but love—Tremaine, then you are a greater fool than any Shakespeare ever wrote.”
Gigi remained in the parlor long after Mrs. Rowland had swept out, trailing a faint wake of rose attar behind her. Slowly, absently, she finished the cream cake Mrs. Rowland had left behind, as well as the two small jam tarts that still remained on the three-tiered platter.
If only she could be certain that her mother was dead wrong.
Chapter Twenty-two
The duke, upon first glance, did not appear either a scholar or a reprobate—no book dust or buxom doxies clung to him. But he was certainly imposing as an aristocrat of the highest rank, with none of the golly-would-you-believe-my-good-luck mellowness that characterized the current Duke of Fairford, her father-in-law. No, this was a man born to lord over lesser beings and who'd done it authoritatively for the entirety of his adult life. A man who could cow half of society into hushed awe with his sheer ducalness.
Gigi was not immediately impressed. Despite an upbringing focused exclusively on becoming a duchess, she seemed to have inherited a democratic streak from her plebeian ancestors. “Good evening, Your Grace.”
“Lady Tremaine, you have decided to join us after all.” His corresponding wry amusement made it evident that he was not without a clue as to the purpose behind the dinner.
The surprise was her mother, who did not have a democratic bone in her body. Gigi would have expected some reverence on her part—and triumph that she'd finally maneuvered Gigi and the duke into the same room—but Mrs. Rowland's demeanor was rather one of grim determination, as if she were on a mission to Greenland, a grueling journey with nothing but barrenness at the end.
Equally intriguing was the duke's deportment toward Mrs. Rowland. A man such as he did not know how to be nice. He probably tolerated his friends and treated everyone else with condescension. Yet as he complimented Mrs. Rowland on her flower arrangements, he displayed a solicitude and a delicacy Gigi hadn't sensed in him before.
Camden arrived late, his hair still slightly damp from his bath. He'd returned from the seashore only thirty minutes ago.
“May I present my son-in-law, Lord Tremaine,” said Mrs. Rowland, in a rare bit of archness. “Lord Tremaine, His Grace the Duke of Perrin.”
“A pleasure, Your Grace,” said Camden. Despite his hurried toilette, he seemed more settled into the role of affable, oblivious host than anyone else. “I've had the pleasure of reading Eleven Years Before Ilium, a most illuminating work.”
The duke raised one black brow. “I had no idea my modest monographs could be found in America.”
“As to that, I wouldn't know either. I received a copy from my esteemed mother-in-law, when she was in London last.”
The duke turned his monocled gaze to Mrs. Rowland. He'd have resembled a Punch caricature if it weren't for his commanding presence and his sardonic self-awareness.
Mrs. Rowland shifted her weight from one foot to the other, then back again. Gigi's eyes widened. The men in the parlor might not understand the significance of that seemingly unremarkable motion. But Gigi knew that Mrs. Rowland never fidgeted. She could hold as still as a caryatid, and for about as long.
“My mother is a learned acolyte of the Blind Bard,” said Gigi. “You will find few women, or men for that matter, sir, more thoroughly knowledgeable concerning all things Homeric.”