“Suppose it costs fifty thousand? Can I afford it?”
“I cannot at all recommend such extravagance, sir.”
“Richard, what is my annual income?”
He hesitated, hands on hips, as his desire for parsimony warred with the need for honesty. Then he sighed. “Twenty thousand or so.”
“And my expenditure?”
“Currently twelve thousand or so with the London house closed up, but with the duchess’s new establishment—”
“That will come from her settlement, so does not affect my own estates. So, the surplus every year is in the region of eight thousand or so, correct? Which means that in under two years, this scheme of Payne’s could be paid for with no diminution to my income, correct? So I can easily afford it, would you not agree? Richard?”
Pyott, the comptroller, coughed deprecatingly. “If I may remind your grace, the surplus income has been accumulating for some years now, so you already have the required sumavailable immediately. Even if it should amount to fifty thousand.”
The duke laughed. “So let us have no more talk of whether it can be afforded, eh, Richard? I am sure your habit of watching the pennies was useful to you in your previous life, but you must get used to a different way of managing now. This orangery is a compliment to your lovely wife, who is a future duchess, and nothing is too good for her, and no expense will be spared to provide her with a home worthy of her. I said this orangery would be a competition between you and Payne, but so far you have not shown me anything worthy of a duke. Now that we have established that the cost is not a consideration, why do you not make another attempt? If you dislike Payne’s orangery and gallery, then design something you like better, and I will choose the one I prefer. Now off you go. Take some of these sketches to show your wife. Hammond, we have some letters to attend to, I think.”
Richard disappeared, with only one fulminating glance at Simon as he went, and Pyott left, too. Simon gathered up the remaining sketches, but he had not forgotten Juliet’s difficulty.
“Your grace, may I ask you a question on a different matter?”
“Of course, boy. Anything you like. Of course, I might choose not to answer you,” he said genially, making the Hammond father and son chuckle.
“You might not know the answer,” Simon said. “It is about Juliet’s mother.”
“Cecilia,” the duke said, his face softening. “Such a delightful lady. What about her?”
“Juliet was told that she was dead, but—”
“Ah. Was she now? Understandable, I suppose.”
“Perhaps. But since she isnotdead, I wondered if perhaps you knew what became of her… after the divorce.”
“Lord, I forget. Hammond, you are working on my diaries. Have you come across it? The Countess of Edlesborough — the divorce was such a scandal it must have been mentioned.”
“What year was it?” James Hammond said.
“Good question. Must have been… oh, sixty-five, sixty-six, round about then.”
“I have not seen any of your grace’s papers from that era. Father, have you done any work on his grace’s notes for that period?”
“Aye, some. I recall the incident at the time, and I believe she went abroad, but I’m not sure any specific place was mentioned. It was a huge scandal, though. There were some cuttings from the newspapers about the business in Parliament. There was a baron cited as the gentleman concerned, although your own notes, your grace, seemed to doubt it, but he didn’t contest the case.”
“He was in love with her, poor fellow, so he wanted her to be free of Edlesborough. Farrance, that was his name, and he swore he never touched her, which might have been true.” The duke chuckled. “He was always bird-witted. Married, of course, and was too hen-hearted to leave his wife for her, but he allowed Edlesborough to think he was the one who cuckolded him. Edlesborough was a fool, too. He thought I was Cecilia’s lover at one point. I disabused him ofthatnotion. Called him out… he lasted ten seconds, as I recall. The easiest duel I ever fought.”
“Rapiers?” James Hammond said, sounding amused.
“Naturally. The gentleman’s weapon, and needed a bit of skill, not like pistols. Just point and shoot — where is the skill in that? But a well-matched sword fight — ah, that was something else altogether. That was for real men. Difficult to stop, though. I saw men set out ready to fight until first blood, but once they were well into it, they tended to forget. Twice I had to get a manout of the country in a hurry when he got carried away and killed his opponent. Foolishness. Control is everything in a duel.”
“How many have you fought in?” James Hammond said.
“Only three, but I was second for any number of friends. Well, the same friends over and over, if the truth were known. We were a hot-headed set, to be sure. But to your question, Payne, I never heard what became of Cecilia after the divorce. Never met her again, sadly. Ah, she was a lovely lady, and with a different husband… but there, in those days there was none of this romantic nonsense about falling in love. Girls married where their parents told them and that was the end of it, but Cecilia… well, she was never happy, poor girl. Too lively for Edlesborough, that much is certain. It was inevitable that she would get herself into trouble sooner or later. There were men enough willing to console her.”
“Yet you were the one who fought a duel over her,” James Hammond said, amused, “even though you were not one of those who consoled her.”
“Did I say that?” the duke said, eyes gleaming with merriment.
“You did!” Hammond said. “What was it you said? That you‘disabused him of the notion’when he accused you.”
