His heart turned over. She wore a simple light gray jacket-and-skirt set, nothing like the romantic, softly draped dresses he’d seen on the baroness. But from the back, her height, posture, and way her clothes hung on her person—had he kept one of the baroness’s dresses, it would have fit her perfectly.
The woman turned around.
The world stopped. The years fell away. And he was again the nineteen-year-old boy on the cricket grounds of Lord’s, staring at her with an arrow in his heart.
Mrs. Easterbrook.
Francis Bacon once wrote, “There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.” The man must have had Mrs. Easterbrook in mind. Her nose was noticeably long. The unusual shapes of her lower lash lines made her eyes widest not at the center, but more toward the outer corners. And surely those eyes would look absolutely ridiculous were they set even a tiny fraction of an inch farther apart. And yet the effect, together with her high cheekbones and full lips, was simply stunning.
He wanted to make cast models of her. He wanted to take a set of precision calipers and measure every distance between her features. He wanted her blood and glandular fluids analyzed by the finest chemists in the world—there must be something detectibly different in her inner workings for him to respond so dramatically, as if he’d been given a drug for which science had yet to find a name.
But more than anything, he wanted to—
He yanked himself back to his senses: He was a man who had committed himself to another. The baroness might very well not reciprocate said commitment, but he expected more of himself when he gave his word.
“Nasty brutes, are they not?” said the ravishing Mrs. Easterbrook, setting her reticule down at the edge of the display case.
He glanced at the case next to him. Earlier he had been standing next to a display of giant turtles, but now he was in front of a Cetiosaurus. He must have drifted toward her, mesmerized.
“I happen to think they are very handsome specimens—this one, especially.”
She glanced at him, her gaze a caress upon his skin. “Pah,” she said. “Squat and ugly.”
She stood so close they nearly touched, but her words came to him only faintly, as if muffled by fog and distance. And when he turned his head away, so that he wasn’t looking directly at her, he became aware of a subtle yet decadent fragrance of jasmine.
“If you do not enjoy God’s creatures, madam,” he said curtly, “perhaps you ought not to visit a museum of natural history.”
With that, her lover turned on his heels and left.
For a brief minute, as they headed toward each other, the air had crackled with expectation. So familiar, this sensation of closing the distance between them. Any moment now, he would smile and offer her his arm. They would stand together and admire her wonderful discovery. And nothing, nothing, would ever pull them asunder again.
Then she’d noticed his expression: that of a man sleepwalking. A man bewitched, his will confiscated, his faculties forsaken.
He had not exaggerated.
Such reaction on the part of a man used to mortify her—it confirmed that she was a freak. But coming from him, she adored it. She wanted him to gawk at her endlessly. It didn’t change the fact that he loved her for who she was.
And maybe, just maybe, she could use her looks as a lure, reel him in, and keep him close at hand until he realized that he didn’t dislike her. That, in fact, he liked her thoroughly and ardently.
But then he’d recalled himself—and flinched. The self-reproach was plain in his eyes. He thought it unforgivable that for a brief minute, he’d forgotten himself, and forgotten the baroness.
So much for hoping that he’d allow prolonged contact between them. She felt like a reaped field, her harvest gone, and nothing but a long, barren winter ahead.
Slowly she lifted her reticule, which she had set down directly atop of the plaque that read, The fossils of the Cetiosaurus courtesy of Miss Fitzhugh of Hampton House, Oxfordshire, who unearthed the skeleton in Lyme Regis, Devon, 1883.
She’d told him that her dinosaur was a Swabian dragon because the Cetiosaurus was such a quintessentially English fossil and she had not wanted to reveal her English origins. She gazed at its heavy head, its thick legs, and its stout spine, forever associated with the exhilaration of discovery and the limitless possibilities of youth.
“Madam,” said a man in his early twenties at her elbow, someone she’d never met before.
“Madam, my friends and I, we row for Oxford. And we wonder—we wonder if you have any plans at all to attend the Henley Regatta?”
The beautiful Mrs. Easterbrook had struck again, apparently.
“I wish you the very best of luck, sir,” she said, “but I’m afraid I shan’t be there.”
CHAPTER 12
Millie found it difficult to keep her eyes off her husband.
They’d spent the entire day together. Most of the afternoon had been taken with matters having to do with Cresswell & Graves, the tinned goods firm Millie had inherited from her father. After tea they’d discussed the improvements to be undertaken at Henley Park this year. And until the note from Venetia had come, asking them to wait for her in the study, he’d been showing her the changes he’d made to the town house during her absence.
One would think this many consecutive hours would be quite enough. But the more she looked at him, the more she wanted to look at him. It had ever been the case. Today, however, was worse than usual. Today she’d come off the train to find that he’d rid himself of the full beard he’d worn for the past two years. The impact of his unobstructed features, all those lean lines and fortuitous angles, had knocked the breath out of her.
He was Helena’s twin, but he resembled Venetia in bone structure and coloring—dark hair and blue eyes. A gorgeous man, much to Millie’s detriment. But if she’d fallen in love with him because he was beautiful, she’d remained in love with him because she could not imagine spending her life with anyone else.
Half an hour ago, when he’d revealed the one betterment to the town house that had not been on their list, a sparkling new commode in blue enamel with white daisies—quite the private joke between the two of them—they’d laughed so hard they’d both had to lean on the wall to stay upright. Afterward he’d smiled at her, and she’d felt as if she were above the clouds again.
But now his face was grave as he listened to her recount what had happened at the Harvard lecture, in far greater detail than she’d felt prudent setting down in the cable she’d sent to him earlier, advising him to refrain from too many questions upon Venetia’s return and to be sensitive to her moods. Not that he needed such reminders from her—one could always count on Fitz to be tactful and solicitous.
“I find it curious that she is not angry,” he said. “Have you noticed since you came back? She is distracted and melancholy, but she is not angry.”
Millie hesitated, then shook her head. Not because he was wrong, but because she hadn’t had eyes for anyone else in the hours since her return.
A knock came at the door of the study. Venetia slipped in. “Sorry it took me so long. Helena came into my room. I don’t know why she is so worried about me; she really ought to worry for herself instead.”
Millie looked closely at Venetia, trying to gauge whether Fitz was right. But the grimness in Venetia’s expression overrode everything else.
Fitz yielded his chair. “Have a seat, Venetia.”
He came to stand behind Millie’s chair, his hands braced on the chair’s back. She wished her posture weren’t so ramrod straight. She’d love to lean back a little, and have his fingers brush against her nape.
Venetia sat down. “During the crossing, I found one of Helena’s jackets among my belongings. I’m not sure when it was mistakenly packed into my trunk, but since it doesn’t fit me, I left it alone. Tonight as I was getting ready for bed, I remembered the jacket, took it out of my armoire—and found this.”
She placed a piece
of paper on the desk, a letter. Millie picked up the letter; Fitz read over her shoulder. Her heart sank with each line.
Fitz walked away to the window.
“No signature, but he mentions his book and his mother’s house by name in the letter,” Millie spoke into the heavy silence. “This removes all doubts, then.”
“I don’t know whether I am relieved to know for certain, or disappointed beyond words,” said Venetia. “I guess I still clung to the hope that we’d grossly overreacted.”
Millie glanced toward her husband. He stood with his arms crossed before his chest, his face devoid of expression.
“What should we do, Fitz?” asked Venetia.
“I’ll think about it,” he said. “You are not looking well, Venetia. Go to bed. Have a good night’s sleep. Let me worry for a change.”
Millie paid closer attention to Venetia—sometimes it took her a while to see anything besides Venetia’s beauty, especially after an absence. Venetia did appear somewhat nauseated.
Venetia rose and smiled wanly. “It’s the turbot from dinner. Didn’t quite agree with me.”
“But you hardly ate anything at dinner,” Fitz pointed out.
“Should we send for a doctor?” Millie asked.
“No, please don’t take the trouble!” Venetia paused, as if surprised by the emphatic nature of her answer. She softened her voice. “A little indigestion is hardly cause for alarm. I had a couple of soda tablets. I should be all right in no time.”
Venetia left. Fitz took the chair she vacated. “You should be abed, too, Lady Fitz,” he said to Millie. “It’s late and you’ve had a long trip.”
“Long, perhaps, but hardly strenuous.” She got to her feet anyway. They’d been married long enough for her to recognize that he wanted to be alone. “Are you going out?”
“I might.”
To visit a lady friend, probably. She was used to it, she told herself. And it was better this way—why tinker with a friendship as satisfying as theirs? “Good night, then.”
“Good night.”
He was not looking at her, but once again reading Andrew Martin’s letter.
She allowed herself to gaze at him another moment before closing the door behind her.
God damn it, Fitz!” Hastings doubled over, his hands over his abdomen. “You could have ruptured my spleen.”
Fitz flexed his fingers. The punch to Hastings’s belly hadn’t hurt, but the one to his face had. The man had a skull hard as an ingot. “You would have deserved it. You knew it was Andrew Martin, didn’t you? And you didn’t tell me a thing.”
Hastings straightened, groaning. “How did you know?”
“I saw your faces when the two of you were taking your turn in the garden. It was plain as day you were holding something over her.”
He should have taken it up with Hastings sooner, but the Cresswell & Graves decisions couldn’t wait any longer. And Millie’s company had been so agreeable, he’d de-layed his departure from the house again and again. Incomprehensible—she was his wife; her company was his anytime he wanted.
Wincing, Hastings made his way to the coffee service that had recently been brought in. “I told you enough.”
He handed a cup of coffee to Fitz. Fitz accepted the peace offering. “You let us hope, you numskull. If my sister is throwing away her future over some bastard, I don’t want to spend my days praying that I’m wrong. I want to know everything beyond a shadow of a doubt so I can act.”
“What are you going to do?”
“It’s not as if I’ve a wealth of choices, do I?”
“Want me to come along?”
Fitz shook his head. “The last thing I want is to bring along one of her frustrated suitors.”
“I’m not one of her suitors,” said Hastings, sounding remarkably like a boy who had his hand caught in the biscuit jar. “I’ve never wooed her.”
“Only because you are too proud.”
Hastings might fool the rest of the world, but to Fitz he was an open book.
“Sod off.” Hastings gingerly felt his cheek, on which Fitz had left a nasty cut. “Why do you have to know me so well?”
“It’s the only reason I like you.”
“If you say anything to your sister—”
“I haven’t said anything to her in thirteen years. Why would I start now?” He set aside the coffee. “I’ll be off now.”
“Give my respects to Martin, will you?”
“That I will do—in abundance.”
Venetia threw off her covers and left her bedroom. She didn’t mind tossing and turning, but the ache in her breasts—an unfamiliar tenderness around the areolas—disconcerted her. She’d had her heart broken before, but this time her wretchedness had increasingly translated into miscellaneous discomforts and eruptions of bile that had nothing to do with lovesickness.
And she was so tired. Despite all the thoughts in her head swarming like locusts, she’d fallen asleep after tea. After tea, when she’d never napped in her entire life, and certainly not at that strange hour.
She padded down the stairs. In Fitz’s study, there was an encyclopedia with an entry on fossilized footprints. Hers were in storage—God forbid Christian should find out that Mrs. Easterbrook had acquired such an object. A picture in a book was hardly the same thing, but she had no other mementos. And she needed to be reminded that he used to actively campaign for the pleasure of her company, that her continued presence in his life had mattered as much as the sun’s daily climb from the eastern horizon.
But Fitz was already in the study, clad in only his shirtsleeves, a Cresswell & Graves bottle of champagne cider and a glass by his elbow.
“Can’t sleep again, Venetia?”
She took the chair opposite his. “Slept too much after tea. What are you—”
She forgot what she was about to say as she saw the small smear on the front of his shirt. “Is that blood?”
“Hastings’s.”
“Why do you have Hastings’s blood on you?”
“Long story. Anyway, I had a tête-à-tête with Andrew Martin.”
“With your fist?”
“I’d planned to, but it would have been like punching the Easter Hare.”
Mr. Martin did have one of those eternally innocent faces. “So what did you do?”
“I pointed out to him the risks to Helena. That if we can find out, so can others. That if he loves her, he must stay away from her.”
“You think he would?”
“He seemed contrite enough. In any case, I told him that if he gave me the least cause for suspicion, I’d remove his—pardon my language—stones.” Fitz fetched another glass and poured champagne cider in both. “Now you, Venetia.”
“Me?”
“Your stomach can’t be upset from the turbot. I watched you: You cut the filet and moved the pieces about but you didn’t eat any of it.”
“Maybe it was something else.”
“Maybe it is.”
Why did she have the feeling that Fitz was not speaking of another item at dinner? “I think I’ll take myself back to bed.”
As she reached the door, Fitz asked, “He is not married, is he?”
Without turning around, she said, “If you speak of the Duke of Lexington, I am fairly certain he is not.”
“I don’t mean him.”
A stroke of pure genius—if she did say so herself. Now she could answer in all honesty, “Then I don’t know who you mean.”
Christian tossed aside yet another crumpled piece of paper.
He relished writing to his beloved—a bit of his day, a thought here and there, almost as if he were speaking to her. But tonight those few lines had been impossible to write.
What could he say? When I saw Mrs. Easterbrook, I fell instantly under her spell again. You will be pleased to know that once I remembered myself, all was well. But until then, you were the furthest thing on my mind?
He could exclude any mention of Mrs. Easterbrook. After all, h
e’d visited the Savoy and discussed her with the dowager duchess—more than enough to fill a letter of moderate length. But that would be lying by omission.
It was unthinkable to lie to his beloved.
My Darling,
A test came today in the form of Mrs. Elsewhere, and I cannot say I passed: I am not as immune to her charms as I had declared. I have not done anything for which I must ask for your forgiveness, but I find it difficult to justify the direction of my thoughts.
I need you. If my weakness is exacerbated by the distance that separates us, it may be logically deduced then that your presence will fortify my every strength.
Come soon. You can easily find me.
Your devoted servant,
C.
CHAPTER 13
Millie sliced open the first letter in her pile of morning post.
“My dear, I have it on good authority,” she said, still scanning the page, “that you broke poor Letty Smythe’s heart.”
Venetia and Helena had asked for breakfast to be sent up to their rooms. Millie and Fitz had the breakfast parlor to themselves, allowing for a more private conversation.
“That is a vicious and groundless rumor,” answered Fitz, smiling. “I have, however, stopped sleeping with her.”
“Exactly what I meant.”
“Rather unfair of the rumormongers, don’t you think, to always cast me in the role of the unfeeling villain? It was a pleasant interlude that ran its course.”
“Does Mrs. Smythe think so?”
“Mrs. Smythe will come to agree with me.”
Millie shook her head, as if they were but discussing a misbehaving puppy. “I am not one to gloat, but I told you that you shouldn’t have taken up with her.”
“And I should have followed your advice.”
“Thank you. May I suggest Lady Quincy? She is pretty, well-spoken, and, most important, sensible: She will not make a fool of herself when your affair ends.”
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