“Stand down, mate,” she said. “And please forgive me. We Americans aren’t used to inheriting titles. Generally we have to put in a little effort for that kind of recognition.”
“Right, right. Nothing for free. Only working to the teeth like the busy beavers that you are.” Win rolled his eyes. “In any event, Gads’s loaf-about, un-American brother inherited the title from their father, who was the tenth Duke of Marlborough. Because, as you may have learned during your storied tenure at university, ten comes before eleven.”
Now it was Pru’s turn to roll her eyes.
“Shall I write that down?” she asked.
“Yes, you’d better,” he said. “The tenth duke, in addition to being Gads’s and John’s father, was also the dreaded stepson of our lady of the manor.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Mrs. Spencer aka Lady Marlborough, who married the ninth duke. She did not get along with ol’ Duke Ten. At all.”
“So the duchess is…” She paused. “Gads’s grandmother?”
Win nodded.
“Mrs. Spencer is your best friend’s grandmother?” Pru said. “Have you told her? I feel like she should know.”
“Technically she’s the stepgranny, but close enough. And, no, the woman isn’t aware of my relationship with Gads. Of course she claims she’s not the duchess. Gads’s real grandmother was Consuelo Vanderbilt.”
“Coon!” Pru said with a small clap. “Mrs. Spencer’s best pal.”
“You’ve got it. As you already know, Gladys succeeded Coon as the Duchess of Marlborough.”
“Quick way to end a friendship.”
“Eh.” Win shrugged. “Coon was thrilled to be done with the highly arranged marriage, as was hers with Marlborough Nine. He went by Sunny, short for Sunderland, which was no referendum on his temperament. The man was quite gloomy. Anyhow, Sunny and Coon married so he could have her cash, she his class. When they divorced, both were relieved to shed the fa?ade.”
“Mrs. Spencer told me that she didn’t get married until age forty,” Pru said. “When did Coon and Sunny divorce?”
“Shortly before Sunny and Gladys wed, though they’d been apart for nearly two decades by the time everything was finalized. Coon remarried within months of signing the papers. So did Gladys and Sunny, who had been traveling together as a couple for a dozen years.”
“And Gladys first declared her love for him a dozen years before that,” Pru said. “Nearly a lifetime of loving the same person. Can you imagine? How lucky.”
“Lucky? Most would disagree. As brilliantly as Gladys and Sunny carried on as lovers, once married they bickered like cats. I think they loved each other so much, and for so long, that their expectations were too lofty. Plus his family hated her. Marlborough Ten, Gads’s father, was out of the house by the time they wed but was incensed that the woman weaseled her way into their good name. When Nine kicked it before they could divorce, Ten was livid because Gladys got to keep her title.”
“Poor Mrs. Spencer. Lady Marlborough. To have your new family hate you.”
Pru knew a little something about that, albeit to a lesser extent. They never made it to the wedding, and Charlie had no sons to bicker with or titles to give away, but the Kelloggs definitely viewed her lack of pedigree as an insult to their name. They never should’ve let their Golden Son attend such an anarchic college.
“They didn’t all hate her,” Win said. “Her other stepson, Gads’s favorite uncle Ivor, got along famously with the new duchess. But he hardly mattered, what with his outright lack of dukedom.”
“No wonder she was so miserable living at Blenheim,” Pru said. “She called it a dungeon or a prison or something.”
“The phrase you’re looking for is a ‘monolithic beast of a supposed home.’” Win tapped his desk. “One of the few morsels she’s given us so far.”
“So Blenheim was their family seat. And because of your friendship with Egads, you summered there as a kid and let yourself get wrapped up in the lore of the duchess. She probably made your family look downright boring.”
“That’s the short of it,” he said.
“Do they still live there? At Blenheim?”
“They do. But each year, the family opens up new sections of the palace to tourists in order to keep the lights on, while they themselves consolidate into smaller and smaller portions of their once massive, private home. Moral of the story? Not even Vanderbilt money lasts forever.”
“It’s strange,” Pru said. “If the Marlboroughs were so vexed by the duchess, why did they keep talking about her? Especially after she left?”
“They still talk about her, to this day. Forty years after she disappeared.”
“But she was doing them a favor, right? By not hanging around?”
“The dowager duchess definitely did not ‘hang around.’”
“She got out of their hair,” Pru said, thinking of Charlie’s family. “Of her own accord.”
Were they complaining about her back in Boston? That bohemian orphan. What a blight on an otherwise storied family.