Edith be content? Prudence thought with a snort of disbelief as she went down the stairs. That was about as likely as flying pigs.
She was still fuming as she stood in front of the inn, waiting for the carriage to be brought around. Just what entitled Edith to any of the Abernathy fortune? she asked herself. Not her tender loving care toward her niece, that was certain. And what of Robert? After his neglect of her all these years, why should he and Millicent receive anything?
A brougham pulled into the inn yard, and Prudence started forward, then realized the carriage was not her own and stopped. She folded her arms and leaned back against the wall behind her, still fuming as she watched a footman jump down from the dummy board of the brougham and roll out the steps.
A couple alighted from the vehicle, first a handsome man of around forty years of age, then a pretty, auburn-haired woman who seemed vaguely familiar. Diverted from her own thoughts for a moment, she studied the woman, but couldn’t place her.
“Madeira, if you please, Mortimer,” the woman said to the footman, and her voice added to Prudence’s impression that they had met before, for she knew she had heard that voice somewhere. “I’m simply parched.”
The footman raced past Prudence through the doorway of the inn, and the couple followed at a more leisurely pace, but as they approached, the woman made an exclamation of surprise.
“Why, I do believe it’s Miss Abernathy, isn’t it?” She stopped and stretched out her gloved hand. “You don’t remember me, I expect,” she went on, and it was her cheerful, friendly voice that finally sparked recognition. “I’m—”
“Lady Standish,” Prudence finished for her, clasping the offered hand for a handshake and smiling in return. “How do you do?”
“So you do remember me? I thought sure you wouldn’t, for you had that look on your face—you know the one I mean, where you are trying frantically to place someone who knows you but your mind is blank.” She gestured to the man beside her. “This is my husband, Earl Standish. Darling, this is Miss Abernathy.”
“How do you do?” The man tipped his hat, then looked at his wife. “You two will want to have a chat, no doubt.”
“And you want a pint?” Lady Standish said, laughing. “Go on, then. I shall drink my Madeira out here and have a visit with Miss Abernathy.”
Her husband departed and she returned her attention to Prudence. “It wouldn’t be surprising if you failed to recall me. You were in rather a fluster the day we were introduced.”
“It was a crush at Madame Marceau’s.”
“I should say! And all because of you, my dear. Marceau fawning all over you.”
“Yes. I had suddenly become important, it seems.”
The wryness in her voice was not lost on the other woman, who gave her a shrewd, understanding look. “That’s human nature, I’m afraid. But you’ll have to become accustomed to it, for it will only worsen once you become a duchess. You are to become a duchess, are you not? I heard you are to marry St. Cyres.”
Prudence confirmed that news with a nod, and Lady Standish clapped her gloved hands together like a delighted child. “I knew it! I knew from the first that the two of you would make a match of it!”
“Did you?” Prudence felt a spark of curiosity, for she could only recall seeing Lady Standish the one time at Madame Moreau’s, but before she could inquire further, another voice interrupted.
“Your Madeira, my lady.”
Lady Standish turned to the footman, who paused beside them with a crystal goblet of liqueur on a silver tray. “At last!” She lifted the glass from the tray and took a sip, then breathed a gratified sigh. “Ah, this is just what I need. Thank you, Mortimer.”
He bowed and departed as the countess returned her attention to Prudence. “One’s so used to traveling by train, going anywhere by carriage seems a tedious business, doesn’t it? One needs a bit of refreshment along the way, even when only going across a county or two.”
“Are you merely passing through the village, then?”
“Yes. We’re on our way to Tavistock for a house party and we should arrive in time for dinner. But enough about my plans. I want to talk about you, my dear. You and St. Cyres. I was thrilled to read about your engagement in Talk of the Town.” Leaning closer, she added with a smile, “It’s always so much more amusing to read gossip about other people than about oneself.”
She gave Prudence no chance to comment, but rushed on, “I take full credit for the match, of course. Why, when the duke was looking at you through those opera glasses, I could tell he was already smitten, poor fellow. But he thought you were still a seamstress.” She paused with a tiny frown, her glass halfway to her lips. “Though how he ever knew your profession to begin with, I haven’t a clue. Anyway, I knew about you already, of course, for Lady Marley had told me the whole exciting story at the dressmaker’s. I set the duke straight about the matter at once.”
In this rapid gush, two words in particular struck Prudence with special emphasis. “Opera glasses?” she echoed as uneasiness danced along her spine.
The countess took another sip of her Madeira and nodded. “Yes, at Covent Garden. St. Cyres was looking through his opera glasses and spied you in the box across the way. When I asked him what he was staring at—”
“Wait,” Prudence pleaded, holding up her hand and stopping the other woman in mid-sentence. There had to be some mistake. She had only been to the opera once, and she remembered the evening perfectly well. Some horrid German performance, and she’d seen Rhys at intermission. He hadn’t known about her new situation then, and she had deliberately avoided telling him. He’d sent champagne up to her, and they’d raised their glasses together. Had Lady Standish been sitting with him that night? She couldn’t recall, for she’d had eyes only for Rhys. The image of him leaning back in his chair watching her across the theater, that faint smile on his lips, was burned in her memory. Even now, the image made her heart twist in her breast.
She took a deep breath. “You told the duke about me,” she said, trying to understand. “You told him about my father and my inheritance? At the opera?”
“Of course I told him!” Lady Standish looked thoroughly pleased with herself. “I could tell you’d caught his eye, but a duke can’t marry a seamstress! Especially St. Cyres, for he’s stone broke.” She winked at Prudence in a confidential, woman-to-woman sort of way. “A dowry makes all the difference in the world to a girl, doesn’t it, my dear? It can turn a seamstress into a duchess. I know a bit about that myself, for I had no dowry when I first met Standish…”
The countess’s voice faded away as Prudence pressed four fingers to her forehead and strove to think, but she felt numb and a bit dazed. He’d found out about her money at the opera. Not in Little Russell Street. But that didn’t make sense.
“My dear Miss Abernathy, are you unwell?”
The concern in the countess’s voice penetrated her consciousness. She lifted her head and lowered her hand. “A sudden headache,” she said with a deprecating little smile. “A trifle, really. Do go on. This is…fascinating. Quite, quite fascinating.”
“He adored me, but I was penniless, Miss Abernathy, so we couldn’t marry. But then my grandfather died…”
As the countess chattered happily on about her own romance with Earl Standish years before, Prudence smiled and nodded and didn’t hear a word as she tried to stamp out the horrible, impossible idea that was snaking its way into her consciousness.
There had to be some sort of mistake. He couldn’t have been told about the money at the opera. He hadn’t known about it when they’d seen each other the next day at the National Gallery, or the next when they’d gone on their picnic, or at the ball. Pain squeezed her, a fist around her heart. He hadn’t known. He hadn’t known.
Unless he’d been lying to her all along.
With that thought, everything in the world shifted, changed shape and color and form. No starry eyes, no rosy glow, no romantic love. Just hard, glittering reality.
As if watching the pages of a picture book flip past her vision, she saw herself and him and everything that had happened, but saw it all in a whole new way.
He could have followed her to the National Gallery. Or learned somehow where she would be. Their encounter could have been arranged, yet meant to look like a happy accident.
Their picnic could have been a charade, with him only pretending to be enamored of her.
The ball and Lady Alberta and that afternoon in Little Russell Street…a farce meant to play on her emotions. Lying to her about his motives, yet giving it all a veneer of truth with his frankness about his financial woes. Simple avarice, yet meant to make him seem noble. Playing her like a pawn in a chess game.
Tarrying here only tortures me further, Miss Bosworth. Let me go.
Lies. All lies.
No. Everything in her cried out in denial. This was the man who had been chivalrous and heroic from the very beginning. She could not believe him capable of such deliberate manipulation, such deceit. She would not believe it.