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“Charming,” said the dowager duchess coolly. “Now, Mr. Somerset, won’t you be so kind as to fetch me Sir Randolph Beresford?”

Stuart tried to avoid both Lizzy and the dowager duchess. With Lizzy it was easier, as the host and hostess were not expected to socialize with each other. He also had hopes where the dowager duchess was concerned, thinking his interview with her had come and gone. He was mistaken: He was summoned back to her later that evening.

The dowager duchess rarely participated in, let alone initiated, small talk. But with him sitting next to her, she prated on about her plans for Christmas, her charities, her grandchildren—torrent upon torrent of inconsequential details. He had the sensation of having been fed too much laudanum, his awareness woolly, reluctant, his smiles stiff and hollow.

Then all of a sudden, she said, “I never knew anyone could cook like that.”

And it was as if someone had thrown him overboard as he slept, the return of alertness abrupt and full of dread. He sat frozen, too stunned to gather himself properly, his reaction plainly exposed.

But the dowager duchess did not look at him. Her gaze was solely upon the sculpted handle of her walking stick. “It was…it was as if my entire life, I’d never dined on anything but air and water until tonight.”

Don’t say anything,
Stuart warned himself.
Don’t say anything.
“I believe I felt the same the first time she cooked for me,” he said.

The dowager duchess rubbed her thumb against the ebony of her walking stick’s handle. It was shaped like the head of a dragon. “It made me remember—how it made me remember—all the best and worst days of my life. The day I met the late duke, the day of his funeral, the birth of my children, the ones who did not survive.”

He did not believe he’d ever heard her speak of such personal matters. His astonishment served him well, for she looked at him, and smiled wryly at his expression.

“Do you know, Mr. Somerset, that my late husband’s elder brother—the ninth duke—was married to my sister?”

Stuart shook his head. The ninth duke and his wife were long dead.

“She was much younger than me, beautiful, and clever. I’d always adored her. And my husband had a fierce admiration for his brother. For a time they were the most handsome and magnetic couple in Society—that was, for as long as they lived. They perished at sea together.”

There was the beginning of a crack in her voice.

“They had three children, but only one who survived them—she and her governess had been traveling on a different vessel. My husband and I became her guardians and raised her with our own children, who loved her as much as we did.”

Her voice now faltered audibly. “But we lost her when she was sixteen—and it devastated us. It devastates me to this day.”

“I’m sorry,” said Stuart. And he was, grief-stricken. Was life nothing but a continual bereavement, with a few moments of misguided happiness thrown in to keep hopes alive and the days bearable?

In another uncharacteristic move for her, the dowager duchess laid her gloved hand over his and gave a small squeeze. “I will take my leave of you now, Mr. Somerset,” she said, rising. “It has been an evening I will not forget.”

Lizzy thought it had gone well. And she said so to Stuart, after the drawing room emptied. “Although you must have a word with your cook. She simply cannot cow the guests into silence every time. I want my dinner table to be known as much for the conversation as for the food.”

She flashed him a teasing smile. The smile he returned her was drained. “I’ll let Madame Durant know.”

Her father had gone to use the water closet; the two of them were alone in the drawing room. She went up to him and embraced him, laying her cheek against his lapel.

“Why did you stop sending me flowers?” she murmured.

“Now I’ll have to remember that I sent you flowers,” he said, his voice wooden. “I’m not sure that Her Grace quite believed it.”

Her heart tightened. What did he mean by it?

“Why wouldn’t Her Grace believe it?”

“She knows me too well.”

“To think that you’d ever send flowers to me?”

“To think that I’d send flowers—and on such consistent basis—to a young lady before I’d decided to pursue her hand,” he said. “But I’ll be sure to send you flowers from now on, since they please you so well. Do you like roses? We’ve some interesting varietals at Fairleigh Park.”

Her heart sank. There had not been a single rose in all the flowers she’d received in seventeen months. But the card that had accompanied the very first bouquet had said
The Office of Stuart Somerset, Esq.,
and so she’d assumed that the subsequent bouquets, which had no cards but which all came from the same florist, had been sent by order from his office too.

There were other people who worked in that office: three law clerks and Mr. Marsden.

I believe I deserve better from you.

But when she’d thanked Stuart in person for everything he’d sent her, he’d graciously acknowledged her gratitude. He certainly hadn’t protested that he hadn’t sent her anything.

Because he had. He’d sent a box of books on philosophy (she’d boasted to him of her new philosophical inclination during her affair with Henry), sundry tonics for listlessness and wasting (most of which sat in a cupboard, unopened), and some sheet music for the latest French songs, which he’d acquired when he’d visited Paris—considerate, proper gifts that would raise no one’s brow coming from a gentleman friend of long acquaintance.

But she’d believed that he’d sent the flowers. And had made her decision to marry him based in no small part on that very assumption.

At the sound of her father’s approaching footsteps in the corridor, she pulled away. “It’s late. I should be going.”

“You forgot to tell me whether you like roses,” he reminded her, with an elaborate gentleness, so elaborate it was almost as if they were playing parts on a stage.

“Don’t insist on it. We are almost married; we don’t need such superfluous gestures.”

“But you said only now you wished for flowers.”

Not anymore. And not from him. So she pretended that she didn’t hear him. “Ah, Papa, there you are. We must hurry before we wear out our welcome here.”

Stuart looked at her oddly. But she’d already set her departure in motion. He shook hands with her father and, ever proper, bowed to her. He always adhered to the strictest rules of conduct before her father, but tonight his bow seemed to symbolize the distance between them, a distance that increasingly felt unbridgeable—and filled with everything she dared not, could not, and would not say to this man with whom she’d made the commitment of a lifetime.

The summons surprised Verity. She thanked Mr. Durbin and changed out of her nightgown into a clean dress, one that didn’t smell too much of dinner. Her hair she pushed under a cap. She opened a jar of face cream that she’d made from beeswax and spermaceti and dabbed it across her cheeks, stopping only when she remembered that she’d already applied some earlier in the evening—and that she wasn’t quite ready to show Mr. Somerset her face yet.

Her heart beat fast as she knocked on the door to the study. She couldn’t imagine that it was merely a desire for conversation that had led to the summons. But what could he have wanted badly enough to send Mr. Durbin after her at this hour?

“Come in.”

“La lumière, Monsieur,”
she reminded him.

“It would look odd,” he replied.

Neither Mrs. Abercromby nor Mr. Durbin had gone up to bed yet and both might stop by the study to see if he had any needs before they retired for the night.

“I will stay by the window,” he said. “I won’t turn around.”

Perhaps you should,
she thought.

And perhaps she shouldn’t have said “I love you” so precipitously. She did not regret it, for it was true. But things hardly needed to become more complicated between them.

She entered the study. The curtains were open. He stood with his back to her, in his shirtsleeves, his hands in the pockets of his dark evening trousers—a man two inches over six feet, wide-shouldered, and whipcord lean. She remembered the sinewed tightness of his body from their embrace in the basement and from their lovemaking the day before.

Lovemaking,
she repeated the word in her head. The memory of the pleasure he’d brought her was a hot jolt in her abdomen.

“Why did you and Bertie never marry?”

The question came out of nowhere and disoriented her. “Gentlemen don’t marry their cooks, sir.”

“I was told he came close to marrying you.”

Her heart stilled. “And who would tell you such a thing, sir?”

“The Dowager Duchess of Arlington,” he said. “She was here tonight.”

She swallowed. “I’m—I’m surprised that Her Grace would even know that I exist.”

“Well, she does. And I’ve never known her to speak frivolously on any subject,” he said.

He admired the dowager duchess, she suddenly realized. Of course he did. So did she, to this day. The dowager duchess had no flaws and no weaknesses. Her husband had worshipped her. Her children were paragons one and all. And though she’d never been beautiful, she had the presence and fierce handsomeness of a falcon.

“Was it true, then, that Bertie meant to marry you?”

She supposed Bertie had considered it seriously enough to undertake the trip to Lyndhurst Hall—without telling her where he was going. He would have gladly married the Lady Vera Drake and allied himself with the Arlingtons: a very satisfying nose-thumping at his brother, who had no hope of ever joining such a fine family.

“No,” she said. “He never meant to marry me. He would not dream of marrying his cook, certainly not when Society and his brother would derive such amusement from it.”

For a moment she thought he’d turn around. She tensed. But that moment passed and he stayed where he was. And said nothing. She clasped her hands in front of herself, behind herself, then finally wiped her perspiring palms on her dress.

When the silence distended too much, she blurted out, “I would like to thank you for the painting, sir. It is exquisite.”

“No, it is I who should thank you. My breakfast meeting went swimmingly thanks to your croissants. I’ve never accomplished so much in so short a time with this particular collection of colleagues.”