“Good gracious, what is wrong with that woman?” said Mrs. Rowland indignantly. “Isn't a nice strong silk scarf good enough for her?”
He almost sprayed coffee all over the tablecloth. Good grief. This woman constantly forced him to reevaluate his opinion on what being a virtuous woman entailed. Apparently, sexual creativity in a proper, earnest English marriage was not half as dead as he'd believed.
“But I digress,” she said, reverting to an impeccable demureness that hid God knew what other experiences and inclinations, a contrast rich in properties aphrodisiacal. His younger self would have expended enough wherewithal to wage three wars to possess her already. His current self did exactly the same, but only in his mind.
“Now, where was I? Oh, yes. I had the detective look into the state of Mr. Elliot's marriage.”
He wouldn't quite compare her announcement to being shot in the chest, having lived through the latter—but it came perilously close. He felt as he had then, standing dumbly in place, looking down at his hand clasped just to the right of his heart, blood seeping out between his fingers.
How could she, of all people, not understand that he could not bear to learn the truth of what had happened to the Elliots' marriage? That whatever peace and tranquillity he'd been able to derive from his hermit's life had depended on his not knowing, on hoping that he had not brought about the unhappiness of an entire family?
Perhaps she sensed the magnitude of shock in him. Her face turned somber. “I shouldn't have, I know.”
He glared at her. “Lady, your specialty is undertaking that which you shouldn't. Rest assured you'll face vituperation such as you've never imagined.” He could have gone on longer, informed her of his exquisite command of invectives, and depicted in graphic detail the shrunken, pockmarked state of her soul after he was done with her. He didn't. There was no point in postponing the inevitable, though God knew he wanted to. “Now tell me what your detective has learned.”
“They are fine,” she said, smiling sweetly.
His imagination was playing tricks on him. He thought she said they were fine. “The truth, if you will,” he said.
“My detective worked in the Elliot household for several weeks and reported with confidence that Mr. and Mrs. Elliot get along very well, not just with civility but with fondness.”
“You are making it up, aren't you?” he mumbled. How could it be? How could any human association that had gone so wrong right itself? Was he in error after all and Man not quite as doomed as he'd long gloomily believed?
“You need not depend solely on what I say. The detective's name is Samuel Ripley. He worked for the Elliots for three weeks last month, under the name Samuel Trimble, as an under-butler. What I tell you is but a summary of his written report, which arrived yesterday on the late post. It is a richly detailed document, with all overheard exchanges and eyewitness accounts painstakingly recorded.
“My daughter is nothing if not prescient at employing people with the utmost dedication. It is clear to me that Mr. Ripley spent an inordinate amount of time at keyholes and upper-story windows. Why, there are sections of the report that I hastily skimmed over, to preserve my womanly delicacy.”
His heart constricted. His throat constricted. The dark cloud of culpability had hung over his head for so long, he'd forgotten the pure, beatific light of a clear conscience.
“I've brought the report with me, if you would like to have it fetched from my carriage.”
He rose, fetched the nearly half-inch-thick document himself, and, standing next to Mrs. Rowland's landau, read every word of the meticulously chronicled domestic life of Mr. and Mrs. Elliot, not skipping any sections, particularly not those in which the couple engaged in activities that they ought to have performed no more times than they had children. He especially enjoyed the lurid yet sweet endearments they had for each other. My darling little dumpling. My lord of the battering ram.
Langford Fitzwilliam, His Grace the Duke of Perrin, returned to the south parlor walking on air, blinded by the incomprehensible beauty of the world.
Mrs. Rowland had a glass of cognac waiting for him. “There, sir,” she said. “You have not ruined a man's life. You may breathe easy again.”
He drained the cognac. Fires of joy spread in him unabated. “I feel I can smile through a hundred small country dinners.”
“That is exceedingly heartening news. I've at least that many people to impress by having a duke at my table.”
“Only at your table?” He grinned. “Where have all your ambitions gone?”
“Not gone at all, only mellowed, Your Grace. I stand today quite satisfied to rub people's faces in our warm friendship.”