She'd seen plenty of parure in her life. She owned a few gorgeous pieces herself. But even she rarely came across a set with such nerve and audacity. It would take a superbly self-assured woman to subsume its glitter in her own radiance, to not become a mere accessory to the necklace's splendor and costliness.
There was a note, undated and unsigned, in Camden's slanted hand. The piano arrived in one piece, as out of tune as ever. Civility demands a return gift. I'd bought the necklace in Copenhagen. You might as well have it.
In Copenhagen. He'd bought it for her.
“Looks like everything is here,” she mumbled.
“Very good, ma'am,” said Addleshaw. “I am also to inform you that you may, at your pleasure, repetition for divorce. Lord Tremaine has instructed us to stand aside and do nothing to impede its progress. The divorce should be a fairly straightforward legal matter at this point, as you have no children and no entanglement of properties that isn't already clearly spelled out in your wedding contract.”
For a moment, her heart stopped beating. “He has withdrawn all objections?”
“Yes, ma'am, Lord Tremaine stated his assent in a letter addressed to myself. I have brought the letter, if your ladyship would like to read it.”
“No,” she said quickly. Much too quickly. “That will not be necessary. Your word is good enough.”
She rose. The lawyer got to his feet also. “Thank you, ma'am. There is, however, one last small matter.”
Gigi glanced at him, surprised. She thought their interview concluded already. “Yes, Mr. Addleshaw?”
“Lord Tremaine requests that you return to him one small item, a ring with filigree gold work and an insignificant sapphire.”
She froze. Addleshaw had described her engagement ring.
“I shall have to search for it,” she said.
Addleshaw bowed. “Allow me to take leave of you now, Lady Tremaine.”
The small sapphire glittered mutedly as Gigi turned the ring between her fingers. Camden had bought it for her. And she'd been floored. Not by the ring itself, but by him, by the overwhelming symbolic meaning of the gesture. He loved her.
Her wedding ring she'd donated long ago to the Charity for the Houseless Poor, but this ring she'd kept—out of sight, in a box that also contained the desiccated remains of all the flowers he'd ever brought her and a faded length of blue ribbon that had once been a sweet, crushed bow on Croesus.
Now he desired the ring back. Why revisit the most painfully sweet part of their past now? Why not demand that Croesus be returned too while the poor old dog still had a breath left?
Was he deliberately trying to provoke her?
But what if he wasn't provoking her? What if he really just wanted the ring back? Well, then. He'd still get what he wanted. He only had to fish it out of her—
She clamped a hand to her mouth. It was hardly the most sexually shocking thought she'd entertained in her life. What astounded her was the waywardness and mischief of it, all ebullient optimism when she'd believed herself morose and listless.
She loved him. If she'd been willing to violate the principles of decency in her youth, why couldn't she do something that was perfectly within the bounds of good behavior—namely, showing up naked on his bed? Only think of the endless sexual possibilities.
She tittered a little into her hands. She was a naughty woman, assuredly. And Camden had adored her for it.
There. Nothing more to be said for it. She was going to New York City. And she would not return until she could inform Mrs. Rowland that she was at last going to be a grandmother.
Chapter Twenty-seven
2 September 1893
Victoria's weekly tea with the duke happened only twice. After that, it became two times a week. For a week and half. Toward the end of that particular week, somehow they ended up in animated conversation by the fence of her front garden as he walked past her cottage. Then he invited her to come along with him, she accepted, and they'd shared the walk each day thereafter.
There were advantages to being an almost hag, Victoria reflected. In her youth she'd been fervently concerned that everyone should perceive her perfection. She mouthed only the most agreeable platitudes and ventured not a single opinion that wasn't as bland as porridge for the invalid.
Amazing what changes thirty more years of life brought about in a woman. Why, only the day before, as they toured her private garden, she'd declared His Grace blind for not seeing that the friendship between Achilles and Patrocles was more than friendship—what man would be so grieved by a mere friend's passing that he'd refuse to let the corpse go to the funeral pyre?