Victoria had had to content herself with that while she corresponded with Camden in secret, dropping bits and pieces of Gigi's news between descriptions of her garden and her charity galas. Four times a year his letters came, as reliable as the rotation of the seasons, informative, and amiable to a fault. Those letters kept her hopes alive. Surely he meant to come back one day or he would not bother writing to his mother-in-law, year in, year out.
But could Gigi not leave well enough alone? What was the girl thinking, risking something as nasty and damaging as a divorce? And for what, that all-too-ordinary Lord Frederick, who wasn't fit to wash her drawers, let alone touch her without them? The thought made Victoria ill. The only silver lining she could see was that this was sure to make Camden sit up and take notice. Perhaps he'd even come back. Perhaps there'd be a passionate confrontation.
Camden's telegram the day before, informing her of his arrival, had made her walk on clouds. She dashed off one back to him, scarcely able to contain her jubilation. But this morning his response came, thirty-one words of unrelenting bad news: dear madam stop please kill your hopes now stop as a merciful act to yourself stop I mean to grant the divorce stop after a certain interval stop yours affectionately stop camden.
And she had grabbed the nearest garden implement and mangled all her lovely, rare, painstakingly raised varietals. Now she dropped the shears, like a contrite killer flinging away her murder weapon. She must not go on like this. She would end up in Bedlam, an old woman with wild white-streaked hair, beseeching the pillow not to abandon the bed.
Fine, so she could not prevent the divorce. But she would find Gigi another duke. In fact, one lived right down the lane from her cottage here, a few miles from the coast of Devon. His Grace the Duke of Perrin was a rather intimidating recluse. But he was a man of able body and sound mind. And at forty-five years of age, he was not yet too old for Gigi, who was getting dangerously close to thirty.
So Victoria had wanted the duke for herself when she'd been an eligible young lady, living in this very same cottage on the periphery of his estate and his sphere. But that was three decades ago. No one else knew of her erstwhile ambition. And the duke, well, he didn't even know she existed.
She'd have to abandon her duchesslike reserve, forget that they had never been introduced, and barge into his path, which took him past her cottage each afternoon right about quarter to four, in fair weather and foul.
In other words, she'd have to act like Gigi.
When Camden returned to the town house after his morning ride, Goodman informed him that Lady Tremaine wished to confer with him at his earliest convenience. No doubt she meant that he should present himself that very moment. But that would not be at his convenience at all, as he was both hungry and disheveled.
He breakfasted and bathed. Giving his hair one last rub, he let the towel drop to his shoulders and reached for the fresh clothes he had laid out on the bed. At that precise moment, his wife, in a blur of white blouse and caramel-colored skirts, burst through the door.
She took two steps into the room and stopped, a furrow instantly forming between her brows. As promised, the bedchamber had been aired, cleaned, and furnished, an entire handsome redwood set—bedstead, nightstands, armoire, and chest—roused out of long slumber in the attic and pressed into service. Beneath the large Monet that hung above the mantel, two pots of tailed orchids bloomed silently, their fragrance light and sweet. But despite all the buffing and polishing Goodman had ordered, a musty scent clung to the resuscitated furniture, an odor of age and blank history.
“It looks exactly the same,” she said, almost as if to herself. “I had no idea Goodman remembered.”
Goodman probably remembered when she had last broken a nail. She had that effect on men. Even a man who left her behind never forgot anything about her.
In those days when he'd felt more charitable toward her, Camden had been certain God lingered over her creation, breathing more life and purpose into her than He bestowed on lesser mortals. Even now, with the ravage of a sleepless night plain on her face, her onyx-dark eyes still burned brighter than the night sky over New York Harbor on Independence Day.
“May I be of some assistance?” he said.
Her gaze turned to him. He was quite decent. His dressing gown covered everything that needed to be covered and most of the rest of him too. But she did look surprised and then, faintly but unmistakably, embarrassed.
She did not blush. She rarely blushed. But when she did, when her pale, snooty cheeks turned a shade of strawberry ice cream, a man would have to be mummified not to respond.
“You were taking a long time,” she said brusquely, by way of explanation.
“And you suspected me of deliberately making you wait.” He shook his head. “You should know I'm above such petty vengeances.”
Her expression was a pained sneer. “Of course. You prefer your vengeance grand and spectacular.”