“Lilly?”
Her maid emerged from the dressing room with one of Nellie’s hats in her hand. “I’ve sent for the hot water, Your Grace.”
“Take the roses down to the housekeeper. They displease me. The color clashes with the walls.”
Lilly looked mystified. “Yes, Your Grace.”
Charles was absent from his study again. She was a little relieved. It was not her intention to fight with him, not with Marian’s advice ringing in her ears. She resisted asking Barlow of his whereabouts and left the house. When she entered the hotel dining room, Marian waved from a table.
Nellie sat down.
“That is a very fetching bonnet,” Marian observed. “I love the green ribbons and the dyed feathers. Which milliner made it?”
“This green isn’t my color, so I shall gift it to you.” Nellie eyed her sister as she pulled off her gloves. She told her about the roses.
Marian sighed and patted Nellie’s hand. She picked up the menu. “We’d best order. The waiter is hovering.”
Nellie peered at the list of dishes, but the words swam before her teary eyes. “So you think I’m overreacting?”
“I don’t know. But if there is something between Charles and another woman, you are not one to run away like Eliza did. Talk to Charles, Nellie. Decide what it is you want from this marriage. Demand it of him. And if he doesn’t agree, well, make your own life. Women do it quite successfully.”
“But it sounds so hollow,” she said, realizing it was precisely what she had intended her marriage to be. “Without love in their life.”
“Some are. They raise their children or take up some cause or other.”
Her literary salon had been her dream. It meant everything to her before she met Charles. But if a woman came between them, it would be the end for her. She would endure the marriage without the intimacy they had thus enjoyed. But without his humor, tenderness, and generosity, it seemed too bleak to endure. She gazed around the busy hotel dining room, fearing people would stare and gulped back a tear.
*
“You should marry, Angelique. Your boy needs a father.” Charles sat on his former mistress’s sofa, in her new apartment, her dashed parrot cursing at him from its cage. The bird seemed to remember his and Angelique’s prior argument and took umbrage.
“I cannot marry Luis’s father. You know he is married,” she said with a toss of her head. “And I was quite happy with you.”
“But we had an understanding. Our association was to end before I married,” he said. “You are not without funds? Do you still receive an income from your family in France?”
“Oh, oui. And you have been most generous.” She held up her wrist and admired the bright flash from the diamond bracelet. She came to perch on the arm of his chair. “You miss me, no? These English virgins, pah! She will not know how to please you.”
“I am most pleased, I assure you.” He removed her letter from his pocket unopened and tossed it down. “Any letters you send me will go unread into the wastepaper basket. Any flowers sent will be given to the poor to sell on the streets.” He stood. “Understand this, Angelique. Our relationship is over. I wish you well, but this is an emphatic goodbye. And as for you,” Charles said, turning to catch the beady black eyes of the parrot. “You’d best be careful, or one day someone will turn you into a pie.”
A deafening squawk followed him down the stairs.
Charles headed straight for Jackson’s Boxing Salon. He would vent his spleen on someone willing to take him on and hopefully return home in a calmer mood.
Later, when he entered his suite and stripped off his shirt, Feeley clucked his tongue. “That’s a fine bruise you have on your chest, Your Grace. How is the other fella?”
Charles grinned. “Has a sore jaw, I imagine.”
In the evening, when Charles passed through the sitting room, vases of delphiniums were the only floral arrangements on display. And when he knocked and entered Nellie’s bedchamber, there was a pleasing lack of red roses.
In her wrapper, Nellie emerged from her boudoir to greet him, her hair a silky waterfall swinging almost to her waist. “How was your day?” She threaded her fingers through the hair at his nape and kissed him.
“Annoying. I missed you.” Charles held her close, his hands sliding over her hips to bring her closer. “What did you do?”
“Marian and I lunched at Grillon’s.”
“How is your sister? Any more helpful advice?”
Nellie raised her eyebrows, a smile lifting her lips. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“I have resisted thanking her on several occasions.”
Nellie laughed. “Stop talking nonsense and go. Lilly is about to do my hair.”
His hands moved up into her hair. “Why mess with perfection?” He lowered his head to her locks, breathing in the scent of lavender. His lips traced a path down her neck and made her shiver.
Nellie sighed and wriggled away. “Don’t distract me, Charles.”
He looked amused. “Was I?”
She shook her head at him with a wry smile. “I must dress. We are to dine with Mr. Constable, are we not? He might have a new painting to display.”
“If he does, it will be magnificent. You wish me to buy it?” Charles pulled his pocket watch from his waistcoat. “We dine at eight o’clock. And it is almost seven,” he said pointedly.
Nellie gave him a push. “Then go!”
She undid the ribbons on her wrapper, distracting him with a view of her luscious creamy breasts rising above her corset. Was there time for even a quick moment or two…he hovered considering it, then the urgent correspondence he had to deal with for the mail tomorrow entered his head. Better to do it now rather than later.
“I’ll be in my study.” He pressed his lips onto the soft, perfumed skin of her shoulder, then reluctantly left her.
Had something occurred at this luncheon? There
