“I do believe she is newly eighteen,” Rosamund agreed mildly. “If the Duke of Brandon is looking for a biddable young wife, Lady Lavinia would be an excellent choice.”
Yes, she would. Admittedly, Lottie had placed Lady Lavinia on her list of prospective brides for Brandon. But that had been before, when she had been secure in her belief that she would never be intimate with him herself. The notion of crossing out the debutante’s name was undeniably appealing now.
“Indeed.”
Oh, how the concession cost her pride. Lottie was not so very old, but compared to a young chit like Lavinia, she felt positively ancient. To say nothing of the trials her marriage had put her through.
“They do make a well-matched pair,” Rosamund continued thoughtfully. “His dark to her light, his height to her shorter stature.”
“You make them sound like horseflesh, my dear.”
“Finding a husband or a wife is scarcely any different,” her friend said. “Bloodlines are considered. Teeth must be examined, et cetera.”
Lottie laughed. “What a sight it would be, the Duke of Brandon inspecting Lady Lavinia’s teeth on the ballroom floor.”
It certainly would have improved her mood to see such a scene. It would have made her feel less…raw. She didn’t know why she should be affected so. She’d taken lovers before. But then, none of her past lovers had been interested in marriage.Their needs had been as clear and plain as hers. Pleasure, nothing more. Nothing permanent. No emotions involved—purely the physical.
Not that she had developed anything so foolish as feelings for the Duke of Brandon. Because she most assuredly hadn’t. It was merely that watching him with another woman who might become his wife and the mother of his children…well, it left her at sixes and sevens.
“We couldn’t be fortunate enough to have that much entertainment,” Rosamund said. “Balls are dreadfully dull affairs, are they not?”
“Quite tiresome,” she agreed, taking note of the way Brandon leaned nearer to his dancing partner, murmuring something in her ear.
Lady Lavinia laughed. She looked even comelier in the throes of her amusement. Lottie was sure the sound was as clear as tinkling church bells.
“Perhaps a glass of champagne would help,” Rosamund observed kindly. “You seem in need of distraction.”
Her friend caught the eye of a liveried servant passing with a tray of champagne glasses. The servant hastened in their direction. Lottie quickly snapped her fan closed and hung it from her wrist before snatching up some champagne. Rosamund accepted a glass as well, and the two of them drank in companionable silence for a few moments.
“I think I’m going to marry him, you know,” her friend said at last.
Lottie slanted a surprised look in her direction. “The Duke of Brandon? I do believe the champagne has gone right to your head, darling.”
Rosamund chuckled. “Not Brandon, you goose. Camden.”
Relief and shock warred with each other within her. “You’re going to marry the Duke of Camden? Truly?”
As the heiress to unimaginably vast sums, Rosamund would be best served—in Lottie’s opinion—to never marry and to keep her funds wholly under her own control, along with the rest of her life, regardless of how great her yearning for vengeance was.
“I do believe that I am, yes,” Rosamund acknowledged quietly.
Almost wistfully.
“What has so persuaded you?” Lottie wanted to know. “You are currently firmly in possession of the reins, my dear, in control of your fortune and all that comes with it. Why would you wish for your circumstances to change? And marrying a cad like the Duke of Camden? I don’t think the man has it in him to make a good husband.”
“That wouldn’t matter,” Rosamund said. “Not truly. It isn’t a husband I want, of course, and you know that. It’s revenge.”
She knew about the retribution her friend sought, and she well understood the reason for it. Women with broken hearts were forces to be reckoned with, and no one deserved to be meted his punishment more than Lord Wesley.
Lottie took another sip of her champagne. “Revenge at the expense of your freedom, however? Do you truly think it would be worth it, Rosamund? Would you chain yourself to Camden just to spite his brother?”
“He destroyed me, Lottie,” her friend said, her voice low but laden with emotion. “And I understand Lord Wesley all too well. It will eat him alive to know that his brother has married the fortune he once coveted for himself.”
Lottie noted that Rosamund spoke of her inheritance and not herself.
“You are worth far more than your money,” she told her friend staunchly. “Surely you know that.”
“I don’t know that. For the entirety of my life, I’ve been the Payne heiress. Men look at me and see a fat golden cow to milk.That is how it has always been, and that is how it shall always be. Camden is no different, but at least he was honest about what he wanted.”
