“Oh go fuck yourself.”
“Mrs. Spencer!” Pru yelped.
Win made a sound—either a laugh or a choke. Pru could not tell.
“I have no ill intent,” he insisted. “Quite the opposite, actually. You see, I’m a writer.”
“A writer, huh?” Mrs. Spencer snorted. “Well, that’s a dubious pedigree if ever I’ve heard one. What have you written?”
Win flushed. It was a tough issue for the man, being positively ancient and in his midthirties almost, with not much to show for it. He’d endured the past dozen years or so as one of your standard, ten-a-penny struggling writers. His lack of success was a much-trodden topic among his otherwise successful family.
Oh sure, he had the swagger and the charisma, the faux hunting garb and quick laugh, but deep down he was criminally unconfident, as most failures and/or writers typically were.
“Yes, writer? Go on. Speak. What magical tomes have you penned?”
“Er, um, well. Nothing in the public domain,” he finally settled on. “Yet.”
Pru felt a momentary gut-pang of pity. Win Seton was a bit of a loser, she decided. Aimless, sad, and hopeless, like a little boy who dropped every ice cream he ever held. She wanted to give him a hug.
“Nothing in the public domain,” Mrs. Spencer echoed with yet another snort. “How rather on the nose.”
“But I aim to change that by writing your biography.”
“My biography? Who cares about some old lady in the countryside? Or is it that you don’t want anyone to read your work? You seem to be doing a bang-up job of that already, without my help.”
“Lady Marlborough—”
“Mrs. Spencer!”
“The interest in you remains strong,” he said. “People still whisper your name at parties and dinners!”
“Oh codswallop!”
“You must comprehend your legendary status throughout England and in all of Europe, really. America, too, from what I’ve gathered.”
He looked toward Pru, who shrugged.
“Silly boy. There’s not a person outside the gates of this property who gives a whit about me!” Mrs. Spencer said.
“I spent many summers at Blenheim,” Win said and cleared his throat, waiting for a reaction.
Poor sod, Pru thought. The bloke was faring worse with each breath.
“At Blenheim,” he repeated. “They spoke of you endlessly, decades after you’d left. New people were born. The old ones died. Marital unions formed and broke apart. The circle of life in full effect. Through it all, talk of you.”
“I’m not familiar with this Blenheim place.”
“It’s your family seat. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten. Is she…” He turned to Pru and made a circular motion at the side of his head. “All there?”
“I can hear you, Seton.”
“She seems perfectly sane to me,” Pru said with a sideways smile.
“Right.” Win laughed nervously. “Surely you haven’t forgotten Blenheim, Mrs. Spencer?”
“Now that you mention it, the name rings a bell. Isn’t that where Coon lived? During her first marriage?”
“If by ‘Coon’ you mean your old pal Consuelo Vanderbilt, your preceding Duchess of Marlborough, then yes.”
“I’m not a duchess!”
Blenheim.
Pru’s mouth curled in reflection. Blenheim. As she looked between Seton and Mrs. Spencer, it struck her. The name was at once shiny and familiar, like an American penny found on a foreign street. Tidbits gleaned at university were still there, it seemed, despite the shoddy dress and flea-bitten legs.
“You summered at Blenheim?” she asked Win. “Isn’t that where Churchill was born?”
“Yes,” he said. “The very place.”
“Jesus. Here we go again.” Mrs. Spencer rolled her eyes. “That old bastard Churchill. He was not a great man. Of course he wasn’t. The English just like to create heroes and worship them.”
“I think respect for him is fairly worldwide,” Pru said. “So you can’t pin it on the Brits.”
“He just had a certain faculty for making noise. There are people who go through life bashing cymbals. He was one.”
“Goodness, Lady Marl—Mrs. Spencer,” Win said with a chuckle. “If you were chummy with Sir Churchill then you must have some tales to tell, dowager duchess or not. To be frank, I plan to write the biography at any cost. You might as well have your say.”
“I’m confused. Are you writing a book about me or about the Duchess of Marlborough?” Mrs. Spencer asked, one eyebrow cocked.
“Either or. It depends on you.”
“Hmph.” She crossed her arms.
“And Proust!” Pru chirped. “She was pals with Proust!”
Mrs. Spencer shot her a look.
“What? You told me about your pal Marcel on my first night here. You never mentioned it was a secret.”
“Even better,” Win said. “Proust. Churchill. Shall we name the others?”
“Thomas Hardy,” Pru said, feeling Mrs. Spencer’s glare bore into her. “Edith Wharton. J. M. Barrie. D. H. Lawrence. H. G. Wells. E. M. Forster. All the good initialed folks.”