He did the same with her, enjoying her high-pitched giggles. “My expert anglers, think you two can catch another one before we set sail?”
They ran off, leaving him again alone with Theodora. He opened the lid of the picnic basket to store the remainder of their lunch: half of a cold chicken pie, slices of roast beef, an almost empty dish of potato salad, and a few lemon cookies.
Theodora came to stand beside him as he returned a flask of lemonade to its place. “I've been thinking of the past, of St. Petersburg,” she murmured. “Remember what you used to say to me then?”
“I haven't forgotten.” He closed the picnic basket and stared down at it. “But the truth is, I'll be bitter over the divorce. A new wife would find me lacking in both affection and care, and I love you too well to subject you to that.”
There, he'd finally admitted it. The divorce would devastate him. Would come just short of annihilating him. He dreaded the post deliveries, dreaded any and all letters from his English solicitors, dreaded the eventual cable from Mrs. Rowland decrying Gigi's irreversible folly.
“I see.”
She sounded abysmally dejected, like a child being told that there would be no Christmas come December. He pulled her toward him. “But I will still take care of you, always. If you are ever in need, I'm just a cable away. And if, God forbid, something should happen to you, I'll raise the twins as my own.”
He kissed the top of her straw hat. “I will take care of everything for you, you still have my word on that.”
“I guess . . . I guess that's all any woman could ask for,” she said slowly. The shadow on her face lifted. She smiled shyly and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you. You are the best friend I ever had.”
They stood thus for a minute, with his hand on her waist and her face resting against his sleeve. He sighed. Ironic that he should have his arm about Theodora on a boat that he'd again somehow named after Gigi—La Femme, the woman, the wife.
But the sun was warm, the breeze cool. It was still a beautiful day even if he couldn't have his wife. He returned a kiss to Theodora's cheek. “Shall we sail?”
Gigi saw the horseless carriage as soon as she stepped out of the Waldorf Hotel at five o'clock. The beautiful piece of machinery, built around a phaeton chassis, black with trims of crimson, rumbled its progress majestically. The liveried manservant who drove it couldn't have looked prouder had he been atop the queen's state coach.
His pride was reflected on the faces of two of the passengers he ferried. The children basked in the admiration and curiosity displayed on the sea of faces turned toward them. The third passenger's reaction was harder to gauge, as the long veil of her hat effectively hid all her features above her chin.
“To whom does the automobile belong?” Gigi asked a doorman.
“To the English lordship who lives ten blocks down, ma'am,” said the doorman. “They say he's a viscount.”
“No, an earl,” said the other footman. “And that's his sweetheart the Russian grand duchess there. She's been coming up in his horseless carriage every day now.”
Gigi felt herself petrify. Camden lived ten blocks south of the Waldorf Hotel. She'd counted it this morning. And hadn't the former Miss von Schweppenburg married a Russian grand duke?
She fumbled with the veil of her own hat as the automobile came to a quiet stop before the hotel. The passengers alit. The driver opened the boot and retrieved a heavy-looking bucket, which the children immediately took from him, causing their mother to issue a string of safety warnings in French.
The driver bowed. “I'll bring the carriage around at eleven, Your Highness.”
“Thank you,” said Her Highness.
And it was her, the former Miss von Schweppenburg. Who was going back to Camden's house at eleven o'clock at night, after the dinner crowd would have departed, for purposes that needed no clarification.
The bucket was passed to a doorman with instructions for the kitchen. Grand Duchess Theodora and her children entered the hotel and disappeared into a lift.
Gigi slowly walked to a corner of the lobby and sat down. She'd expected to fight for him, given that he might have already taken a lover, to physically remove the other woman, or women—she'd had far too much time to ponder it on the crossing—from his bed and his life, if necessary.
Any other woman.
What was she to do now?
Chapter Twenty-nine
If you do not mind my forwardness, Lord Tremaine, I think my Consuelo would make you a splendid marchioness,” said Mrs. William Vanderbilt, née Alva Erskine Smith.
“I do not mind at all,” said Camden. “I've been known to be exceedingly fond of forward women. But I am, however, almost twice Miss Vanderbilt's age and still very much married, last time I checked.”