“Well, it’s good to see you outside Anya House.” He sips from his wineglass. “I heard you’ve been pretty ill. Now you’re going to hold a ball and announce your new bride there.”
“News travels quickly.” Well, that decision to announce was before my afternoon in my secret room, before the arms and hips and feet of the woman I love. “I will enjoy a ball.”
“Well, good news should travel fast. But it sounds pretty ambitious.”
“Guilty,” I say.
The fellow guzzles his glass, downing the contents in one huge gulp.
“Are you well, Livingston? You seem to be … to be nervous.”
The earl shrugs. He’s less wrinkled than normal, but he spentthe day with my mother and my child, which was my special request. Not sure if it did him any good.
He refills his glass. “Why dine here? Anya House has a good chef. Lord Mark’s wife has those biscuits. You don’t need my help with whatever bet you have with Lady Hampton.”
“Who told you about a bet?”
“Lord Mark. He told me. And as the last man standing in our friend group, obviously you want me to marry Lady Hampton … Wilcox … Palmers … Charles? What name is the woman going by these days?”
“That’s not—”
“No. No, Torrance. No need to beg me. Nothing on this earth would make me marry again. I’m free. I would never think of being held back again. You shouldn’t be considering, either. I swore never to marry again. You should take the oath, too.”
“Livingston, stop talking. Take a drink from your glass. I have a question to ask you.”
“So, you’renotthinking of me as a candidate to marry Lady Hampton?” He waggles a finger at me. “You’ve gotten all my friends …”
“You have one friend, Lord Mark Sebastian. He married Georgina Wilcox. Mr. Carew is an acquaintance. His union to Scarlett Wilcox is the only one I interceded in arranging.”
“Carew is less fun. He married the frighteningly smart sister. She looks a lot like his visiting cousin who was here from Trinidad a few months ago. I miss him. It would be someone to go out with. You’re about to marry so that means I’m alone again.”
This man can’t be this stupid, not to have perpetrated the greatest scandal that London has yet to know. I lean closer. “Why would I want you to marry Lady Hampton when you’re already married? Wouldn’t Mrs. Alexander Melton, the living Countess Livingston, object?”
He starts to laugh. “My wife divorced me in Scotland. She ran off, and I will never marry again.”
“I love the passion and conviction you offer when you announcethis lie. It sounds good and bitter. But I know that Mrs. Melton did not divorce you. She returned to London and currently runs a profitable enterprise.”
Livingston gulps down his brandy and makes a series of hand motions to replenish his glass. Then he whispers, “What are you saying, Torrance?”
“That your wife, your countess, Lady Livingston, is Madame Rosebud. And I hear congratulations are in order.”
“Where did you hear this?”
“One of her flowers told me. A chrysanthemum, to be exact.” Baroness Derand, formerly employed by the brothel, to be precise. “Madame Rosebud has assisted me on a few occasions. She wanted you to escort my daughter and mother on the market excursion. The favor I asked was for her. She wants you to see that being around a child, your child to come, is not terrible.”
He straightens up, and it seems the man instantly sobers. “Lord Mark said you know every scandal. I should’ve believed him.”
“Not every one. Just the important ones. This is important. Rosebud’s child could be your heir—the next Earl of Livingston. You can’t keep a proper relationship in the dark. Madame wants to be out of the shadows. How are you going to bring this about?”
He folds his arms and looks up to the ceiling. “I’d hoped that this would happen later when my dear mama, the dowager Livingston, would be too senile to care. She is the one who ran Rosa off in the first place.”
Of course. Her name is Rosa. Madame Rosebud is Rosa. “The poor dear couldn’t come up with a more creative name?”
“Things are easier if your mistress and wife have similar first names.”
This is true. Katherine. Katia. It would be terrible to whisper the wrong name at an intense moment. “But for you, these are the same woman.”
“I know it sounds crazy. But she’s a businesswoman. I met her as she was selling flowers.”
