Page 97
“You remember her too,” she said.
Her.
She didn’t mean Effie.
“The Duchess of Weston?” Lavinia asked it a moment before she remembered that Lucy was now the Duchess of Weston. But Lucy showed no sign of confusion, or offense. She nodded and made a sweeping gesture.
“When she was alive, this was all filled with grapes and figs. Anthony describes it as a miniature Eden.”
“Does he?” Lavinia felt again that lump in her throat. Lucy’s lips curved up, not down, when she mentioned Anthony.
The tiny, frizzy, flinty woman was in love, in love with a man who loved her. Who’d married her.
It took effort to smile, but Lavinia managed.
“Fairyland,” she said. “That’s how I saw it. There used to be a lemon tree. I remember standing under the lemons.” She stepped closer to Lucy, to the long-vanished tree. “One of my earliest memories. And happiest. Right here.”
“That’s why you wanted to come with me.” Lucy tipped her head, adjusting a hairpin with no discernible result. “Not for the art.”
Lavinia bit her lip. Denial would be futile. She’d longed for a last glimpse of the site that had launched her dreams. Strangely, vastly changed though it was, it didn’t disappoint.
“It was a special place.” She smiled a more genuine smile. “I’m glad to see it’s still a special place.”
“On days like today it’s hot enough to cook a ham.” Lucy fanned herself. “Anthony is threatening to build me a proper studio.” She said it almost shyly, as though she couldn’t believe her good fortune.
A rare moment in which her own assessment converged with popular sentiment.
Who in London could believe her good fortune? An orphan from Shoreditch. A devilishly handsome duke. It was something from a storybook.
Lavinia’s lips flattened, but Lucy’s gaze was wandering the glasshouse.
“I’ll miss painting here, though,” she said with a sigh. “Maybe we’ll convert it back to a garden. Grow grapes and figs.” She looked at Lavinia. “And lemons.”
“You could go to Varnham Nurseries.” Lavinia’s voice scratched. She herself thought of going to Varnham Nurseries every day. Why? To torture herself? To remind herself that Neal was picnicking in a Cornish cove with Muriel Pendrake?
“Mmm.” Lucy made a noncommittal sound as she drifted toward an easel. “There’s time for all that. Now, I should finish this homage in oil to an unsung exemplar of feline kind. You can watch me mix paint if you’re hard up for entertainment.”
“I’m hard up for everything.” The sour note in Lavinia’s voice was unmistakable. Embarrassed, she dropped onto a marble bench. But the words kept coming. “I’m about to be divorced and déclassé, de-duchessed and utterly destitute.”
Lucy stopped and turned slowly back around. “Not divorced.” Her gaze was penetrating. “He might agree to nullity.”
Cranbrook might agree, and save his pride in the bargain, if he could impute the nonconsummation to Lavinia’s temperament. Or anatomy. So went Anthony’s reasoning.
“In that case . . .” Lavinia wrapped her fingers around the edge of her marble seat. “Defective, déclassé, de-duchessed, and destitute. A wonderful option.”
Annulment was scarcely better than divorce. But either was preferable to staying in her marriage.
“Not wonderful,” she amended, bravado fracturing. “Least worst.”
Oh dear. Tears. The light was webbing before her eyes. Lucy’s scowl doubled, then trebled.
She should stop now. She heard herself rushing on.
“They’ll never let me back in, my friends. First, the business with my father. I could barely show my face in London as it was. Now this. Agnes will pity me. Cora will disdain me. Elise will pretend I don’t exist.”
“Fine friends.” Lucy put her hands on her hips. “You can do better.” She looked—and sounded—the double of her very elderly, very waspish aunt.
“Better?” Lavinia felt her lips twist. “My friends are the best of the best. Rich, fashionable, eligible, titled—”
