“As you like,” he said, bending to step into his linen. The bulk of the bed stood between them, the top of the mattress as high as his waist. But this act of dressing was nevertheless a display of power on his part. “Now what's this urgent business of yours that can't wait until I'm dressed?”
“I apologize for barging in on you,” she said stiffly. “I'll see myself out and wait for you in the library.”
“Don't bother, since you are already here.” He pulled on his trousers. “What do you wish to speak to me about?”
She'd always been quick on her feet. “Very well, then. I have given some thought to your conditions. I find them both too vague and too open-ended.”
So he'd gathered. She was hardly the type to let anyone walk over her. In fact, she preferred to be the one doing the walking over. He was only surprised that she hadn't come earlier with her objections.
“Enlighten me.” He tossed the towel on a chair by the window, untied his dressing gown, and dropped it on the bed.
Their eyes met. Or rather, he looked at her in the eyes and she looked at his bare torso. As if he needed any more reminders of the naughty, cheeky young girl who used to send her fingers out on feats of alpinism up his thighs.
Now their gazes met. She blushed. But she recovered quickly. “Heir-producing is an uncertain business,” she said, her tone brisk. “I assume you want male issue.”
“I do.” He pulled on his shirt, tucked in the bottom, and began to fasten the trouser buttons at his right hip, adjusting his parts slightly to ease the discomfort caused by his reaction to her.
Her gaze was now somewhere to his right. The bedpost, probably. “My mother never managed one in ten years of marriage. Besides, there is always the possibility that one of us, or both, could be barren.”
Liar. He chose not to call her on it. “And your point is?”
“I need an end in sight, for myself and for Lord Frederick, who should not be asked to wait forever.”
What had Mrs. Rowland said in her irate letter to him? Lord Frederick, I will cede, is very amiable. But he has all the brains of a boiled pudding, and all the grace of an aged duck. I cannot fathom, for the life of me, what Gigi sees in him. Camden snapped his braces over his shoulders. For once, Mrs. Rowland's shrewdness failed her. How many men were to be readily found in England who'd faithfully stand beside a woman in the midst of a divorce?
“. . . six months from today,” his wife was saying. “If by the beginning of November I still have not conceived, we proceed to the divorce. If I have, we will wait 'til I give birth.”
He could not envisage an actual child, not even a pregnancy. His thoughts stopped at the edge of a bed and went no further. Part of him revolted at the very idea of any sort of intimacy with her, even the most impersonal kind.
And then there were other parts of him.
“Well?” she demanded.
He collected himself. “What if you present me with a female child?”
“That is something I cannot help.”
Was it?
“I can see merits to the concept of limits, but I cannot agree to your particulars,” he said. “Six months is too short a time to guarantee anything. One year. And if it's a girl, one more attempt.”
“Nine months.”
He held all the trumps in this game. It was time she realized that. “I did not come to haggle, Lady Tremaine. I am indulging you. A year or there is no deal.”
Her chin tilted up. “A year from today?”
“A year from when we start.”
“And when is that going to be, O Lord and Master?”
He laughed softly at her acerbic tone. In this she had not changed. She would go down fighting. “Patience, Gigi, patience. You'll get what you want in the end.”
“And you would do well to remember that,” she said, with all the haughty poise of Queen Elizabeth just after the sinking of the Spanish Armada. “I bid you a good day.”
His gaze followed her retreating back, her efficient gait, and the dashing sway of her skirts. No one would know, by looking at her, that she just had her head handed to her on a platter, surrounded by her entrails.
Suddenly he was reminded that he had once liked her.
Too much.
Chapter Four
Bedfordshire
December 1882
Gigi disliked Greek mythology, because the gods were forever punishing women for hubris. What was wrong with a little hubris? Why couldn't Arachne claim that her skills were greater than Athena's, since they were, without being turned into a spider? And why should Poseidon be angry enough to toss Cassiopeia's daughter to a sea monster, unless Cassiopeia's boast was true and she really was more beautiful than Poseidon's own daughters?
Gigi was guilty of hubris. And she, too, was being punished by jealous gods. How else was she to view Carrington's abrupt and senseless death? Other roués lived to unrepentant old age, ogling debutantes with their red, rheumy eyes. Why shouldn't Carrington have enjoyed the same opportunities?