“None of Them Will Be My Mother!” the Duke’s Son Declared — Until the Cook Brought an Apple Pie
Chapter 18
Theme:
Font Size:
24px
The Earl of Fenwick cleared his throat."Papa," said Lady Cordelia in a small, steady voice. "I should never have married a man who had not asked me. I am very glad he did not."Lord Pelham looked at his wife for a long moment. He was a weak man, but not a cruel one, and something had broken in his face. "Honoria," he said wearily, "we are going home."Lady Honoria Pelham stood at the head of her own staircase before 300 silent faces, and nobody spoke, and nobody moved to help her. She swept down the stairs in plum satin, and the sound of her skirt crossing the polished floor was the sound of silk tearing: slow and clean and absolute, like the end of a long and costly promise.The great doors closed behind her, and in the stillness, somewhere at the back of the room, someone began, very quietly, to applaud.The Duke of Ashborne crossed the floor to Rosamund. He stopped before her in front of the whole of London, and she saw that his hands were not entirely steady."Miss Vale," he said, loudly enough for the farthest guest to hear. "You are the finest woman in this room, and I should be honored by the next dance.""I cannot waltz, Your Grace," she whispered."Neither can I," said Theodore low, with the faintest, rarest curve at the corner of his mouth. "We shall be quite dreadful together."The orchestra, after a long, stricken pause, struck up a waltz. And the Duke took her gray-gloved hand, and the cook took the Duke's; and in the great gilded ballroom of Pelham House, with their feet quite hopelessly out of step and a ten-year-old boy conducting them with a stern forefinger, they danced.It was after 2:00 in the morning when she found herself alone in the quiet of the Grosvenor Square kitchen—a room she had insisted on seeing—with a candle and a kettle and the old, comforting smell of woodsmoke. She had not been able to sleep: her feet hurt, her heart was too full to hold, and she had decided that there was nothing in the world that could not be improved by a cup of hot milk.She was stirring it when she heard the door.The Duke stood on the threshold in his shirtsleeves, with his cravat gone and his hair rumpled, looking, she thought, extraordinarily young."I did not wish to disturb you," said Theodore, and stopped. He tried again. "That is untrue. I wished very much to disturb you. I have wished it for months, and I have been a coward about it."He came into the room slowly and stood across the table from her, with the candle between them."I am not good at this, Rosamund. I have not said her name aloud in two years, and I have not said yours without thinking it. I fell in love with you at a kitchen table over a plate of apple pie, and I told myself that I was protecting you by saying nothing. I was protecting myself. I have buried one wife, and I am more afraid of losing you than I have been of anything in my life."