“Paris!” Elma gasped.
“No,” Caroline said, “the viscount will be certain to pass through. The Dover-bound train, you know—”
“Guernsey, then?”
“Guernsey,” Belinda echoed.
“Yes, it’s perfect! What do you think? Sunshine, fresh air, and absolutely nobody of note!”
He fell back in his chair. This was useless. What they should be discussing was how Gwen always managed to pick the worst of a very large lot. First Trent, now this one. For poor taste in husbands, her judgment rivaled Anne Boleyn’s.
Then again—he shook his head as Caroline countered Guernsey with Cornwall, and the debate of various hidey-holes picked up steam again—perhaps he had it wrong, and the reason Gwen kept picking duds was because her counsel came from this lot. He would swallow knives for his sisters’ sakes, but if his life or even his lunch depended on it, he would not turn to them for advice. Love, Bel said. Gwen’s aim had nothing to do with love. She wanted status, a title, and so long as everyone around her encouraged her to disguise that ambition and play the nearsighted romantic, her search for golden princes would unerringly turn up toads.
Damn it. He’d promised Richard to look after her. But he’d resisted taking a direct hand in this courtship. His failure had led to the fracas today.
Black humor settled over him. Did he have time for this nonsense? No. But how hard could it be to find a tenable husband? Surely there was one unmarried, titled idiot who did not have a violent temper, or syphilis, or a consuming thirst for drink, or a destructive appetite for cards, or, for that matter, any perversions either illegal or extraordinary.
Almost, Alex could picture this paragon: balding, perhaps, with a pronounced belly accrued during afternoons sitting on his arse in the Lords and evenings relaxing at his club, drinking port and dining on steak while raging with his cronies at the gall of upstart foreigners. Irascible to abstract foes, yes, but also indubitably good-humored with friends, chivalrous with women, fond of his dogs, given to bad jokes that rhymed, and—above all—loyal through and through to those with the good taste to admire him. And Gwen would admire him. If she’d managed to admire Trent, she could manage it with anybody.
All right, so he’d draw up a list of candidates. Hire a man to research them. That should take two, three weeks at most; these MP types were never discreet. He’d dispatch the list to his sisters, instruct them to set Gwen in front of these men, and drop mention of her assets and marital intent. A month more until someone proposed? Yes, just about.
If he got on with it, they could have her engaged within eight weeks. He’d be halfway around the world by the time the next wedding day came. Would send a cable by way of congratulations. Perhaps he wouldn’t even remember the date, and someone, his secretary, would have to remind him when the event was drawing near. Yes. That sounded like an excellent plan.
What he needed, he thought, was a copy of Debrett’s Peerage. And a very strong cup of coffee.
He came to his feet. “If you will excuse me, ladies.”
Chapter Three
One foot into the lobby, Alex came to a stop. Elma had assured them that Gwen was flattened by grief, but here she was picking her way down the stairs, an oversized valise clutched to her chest. More to the point, she had an envelope between her teeth.
The sight arrested him. It seemed historic. He could probably sell tickets to it. Proper Gwen Maudsley, carrying a letter in her mouth for convenience’s sake.
In fact, now that she’d embraced creativity, he could think of several other uses he might suggest for her lips.
It was a hot, predictable thought, irritating and useless, and, above all, bewildering. With so many willing, complex women in the world, he had little respect for men who fixated on girlishness. Innocence was, by definition, an absence of experience—character—knowledge. To desire that absence seemed rather deviant. Certainly it reflected a terrible laziness, or else the same failure of imagination that drove Gerry to patronize artists who challenged none of his preconceptions about the world.
Come to think of it, pity that Gerry was already married. He needed so badly to be admired, and Gwen, of all women, was determined to be nothing but agreeable. A more boring goal, Alex could not imagine.
It said nothing good of him that he found himself watching her all the same. She paused mid-step, lifting her shoulder to catch the edge of the letter, readjusting her toothy grip.
He glanced up again and discovered that she had paused to torque her shoulder toward her mouth and was using this shoulder as leverage to readjust her toothy grip on the letter.
How long since he’d seen her so close? Last autumn, he thought—in the garden at Heaton Dale. The breeze had carried away her shawl, and the late afternoon light, falling through the oak leaves, had strewn a delicate filigree of gold across her smooth, pale shoulders—