Victoria took it upon herself to ask the question that Gigi didn't. “I had no idea. How were you able to do that?”
Camden, like his cousin before him, had signed a marriage contract that prohibited any direct access to Gigi's fortune. “I proved to them who I was and who she was. I had the marriage papers and the announcement from the Times. The Bank of New York decided quite on its own that my wife would come to my rescue should I be in danger of defaulting,” he said, his smile subtly feral.
Good grief. Dazzled by his polish and finesse, Victoria had never observed this brazen side to her son-in-law. She'd always thought the once-upon-a-time affection and friendship between the calculating heiress and the urbane marquess endearing but odd, as the two could not be more different one from the other. How she'd underestimated Camden by equating his burnish of faultless manners with a lack of inner ferocity.
The duke took an appreciative sip of his Burgundy, a fourteen-year-old Romanée-Conti. Victoria was rather shocked to see that he was smiling a little.
He was not classically handsome, his features more rough-hewn than refined, with unruly brows and a Mont Blanc of a nose—a face that lent itself easily to terrifying scowls. But his smile—a slight, underdeveloped one at that—was utterly transforming. It illuminated his fine chestnut-brown eyes, animated his lips, and melted his hauteur with surprising warmth and earthy machismo.
She did not use the word lightly—in fact, she'd never applied it to any living man—but he looked nigh on irresistible. Suddenly she saw why otherwise properly reared ladies fought over him like harpies.
“There are few things I loathe more than small country dinners,” he said. “But, madam, had you only informed me that such remarkable diversion lay in store for me, I would not have compelled you to provide additional entertainment.”
A moment of absolute silence. Victoria was too disoriented to feel embarrassed. She hadn't yet grasped that the focus of the conversation had abruptly shifted from the Tremaines to her dealings with the duke.
“Dear sir,” said Gigi wryly, “pray do tell.”
“Oh, Gigi, please, none of that unseemly interest,” Victoria huffed. “His Grace but requested that I play a few hands of cards with him, which I gladly obliged.”
“Sir,” Gigi addressed the duke, a sly smile on her face. “I've heard that you were a scoundrel. I see that you are at least a rascal.”
“Gigi!” Victoria cried, mortified.
But the duke seemed amused rather than offended. “I was a scoundrel in my youth, to put it kindly. As for my rascally demands, let's just say I could have stipulated a great deal more and still received compliance.”
Victoria felt her face flame a color as bright as Gigi's gown. Oh, how she hated to blush in public, so inelegant and infantile. Camden, bless him, was eating with gluttonous zest, as if he hadn't heard a word of the conversation in the last five minutes. Gigi, taking a cue from her husband, gave the remaining slice of duck breast on her plate another good poke. The duke, however, wasn't done.
“Young lady,” he addressed Gigi. “I hope you realize how fortunate you are, at your age, to still have a mother who would dance with the devil for you.”
It was Camden's turn to cough into his napkin, though in his case it sounded more like choked laughter than actual choking. The dinner, up to that point a parody, if a rather barbed one, was now a farce.
She'd known the dinner to be a bad idea for a while now, hadn't she, thought Victoria wildly. Why, oh, why hadn't she called it off? Why had she persisted as if the duke were Moby Dick and she the crazed Captain Ahab, who would either harpoon him or die trying?
Gigi was not one to take lectures sitting down. “Sir, I hope you realize that, while I am eminently grateful, I have also reminded my mother, pointedly, that no dancing with the devil is necessary on my behalf. I already have the affection and the fealty of a good man. My future happiness after my divorce is already assured.”
The duke sighed exaggeratedly. “Lady Tremaine, I do not profess to know the marvelous qualities of this other man. But why wage—and waste—a divorce when it's more than evident to me that you and your husband haven't even tired of each other yet?”
Having silenced Gigi and strangled Camden's mirth, His Grace turned to Victoria and smiled again, a full smile this time. She nearly melted into her chair, leaving nothing behind but a whalebone corset and an assemblage of skirts.
“Madam”—he raised his glass in a toast—“this is the most sublime Burgundy it has ever been my privilege to enjoy. You may be assured of my everlasting gratitude.”
Chapter Twenty-three
The silence of a house settling into the night was first disturbed as Camden stood brushing his teeth over a basin of water. Then came a loud crash to his left, a heavy vibration that traveled up his ankles to his knees, followed by a muffled shriek.