Wildblossom (41 page)

"I fear I must go," Lady Clem said. "I have a pressing appointment."

As she started off toward Curzon Gate, the young Duchess of Marlborough called, "Have a care, Clementine...."

Those words echoed in her mind as she reached the gate and handed the gray over to her waiting groom. A Renault was chugging nearby, driven by her father's erstwhile coachman, and Lady Clem hopped into the back. Within minutes the motorcar drew up in front of Aylesbury House, one of the great eighteenth century mansions facing St. James Square.

As it happened, Geoff was arriving at that same moment, emerging from his Mercedes. He walked to greet Lady Clem and escort her into the home of the Dowager Duchess of Aylesbury.

"I have been trying to reach you this past day, so that you and I could speak privately," he said. "However, I surmise that your time has been taken up with riding lessons?"

"News travels quickly." She took a chance and alluded to the relationship she suspected existed between Geoff and Shelby. " 'Twould seem that you must have been carrying on an adventure of your own, to be apprised of Mr. Avery's activities." Lady Clem glanced over to see him arch a brow, ceding the point.

The new Duke of Aylesbury had dressed with care in a dark suit and starched shirt chosen to set the proper mood with his mother. When the two callers came into the mansion's entrance hall, he murmured, "I can't bear the grandeur of this place. I hope to God I never have to live here."

"People already expect it."

"Do you know," he whispered cheerfully, "I don't give a damn what
people
expect of me."

She nodded, beginning to sense what he'd wanted to talk to her about. Ingrained pride and outrage warred with a bittersweet sense of relief. Was Ben right about the aristocracy's confused priorities? Were there other avenues to greater happiness? Geoff seemed to believe so.

The dowager duchess received them in her favorite drawing room, which was decidedly formal, with Palladian windows dressed in plum silk, blue-gray walls, and a ceiling elaborately decorated with plaster "icing" in shades of pale yellow, blue, and pink. The gray marble fireplace was flanked by a pair of doors crowned with yellow open pediments. Geoff disliked the room so much that he wondered if his mother had chosen it on purpose.

"There you are, children," Edith Weston said in greeting. Still determinedly mourning, she wore a walking dress of black crepe trimmed with dull jet.

The butler, a man named Whistler whom Geoff judged to be at least one hundred years old, led the couple to chairs facing Her Grace near the fire. A cart laden with tea, scones, and other breakfast food appeared. After the conventions were performed, the servants disappeared, closing all the doors.

The dowager duchess regarded her son through nose glasses that she wore around her neck on a black cord. "Geoffrey, as this meeting was your doing, I shan't presume to lead off with wedding conversation. I do appreciate your show of breeding—visiting me at home rather than forcing me to come to you. Shall I brace myself for a shock?" She gave Clementine a bereft look. "He never brings me any good news."

"Isn't it bloody hot in here?" He got up and went to the window before his mother could tell him not to curse. "All right; there's no getting around it, no undoing it, so I may as well lay the situation out on the table."

"Indeed," Lady Clem said.

"If I believed this news might break your heart, Clementine, I would have insisted upon speaking to you alone... but I know you aren't in love with me." He took a breath. "You see, I have taken a stark look at this betrothal our parents arranged, and have decided that it's wrong for both of us."

"Just
as I feared!" his mother cried. "Lady Tweedstratten wonders if Geoffrey may have been damaged somehow, to make him so relentlessly contrary. Perhaps it was that tumble he took off the nursery step when Nanny went back for her tatting. If only she were still alive so that I might inquire further into possible mishaps!"

His temper flared. "That is absurd." He returned to stand behind his chair, and stared into her distraught eyes. "If you and Father had allowed me to grow up to make my own choices, rather than making them for me while I was still in the nursery, I would not be forced to challenge you now." Geoff's chiseled features were proud and unyielding. "Lady Clem and I are old friends, but I want more, and so should she. There is no reason for either of us to agree to this marriage, beyond the more ridiculous issues of face-saving and—"

"Money?" Clementine suggested gently.

Edith cleared her throat for many seconds and lifted an eyebrow in a gesture unnervingly reminiscent of her son. "Well said, my dear Clementine. How frequently we must remind Geoffrey that marriages among the nobility generally have less to do with love than with matters crucial to the continuity of one's title and way of life...."

"I don't particularly care about building a bigger and better fortune by acquiring the Beech estates. I have other priorities for my life, and Clementine should as well."

"I knew that your father should never have agreed to let you go to that ghastly place—"

"Wyoming, Mother. And, I am more than thirty years of age. I go where I please."

She closed her eyes and moaned. "You haven't been the same since you returned to London. Even your father expressed concern, wondering if you'd taken to chewing one of those exotic roots one hears about—"

Geoff laughed at that, relaxing, and sat on the edge of his chair, leaning toward her. "I have done nothing more shocking than think for myself. In the past, I simply didn't care enough about my own future to fight for my beliefs."

"If it's any help at all, Your Grace, I am willing to release Geoffrey from our engagement." Clementine patted Edith's trembling hand. She wasn't one to make unselfish choices, but she couldn't forget Consuelo's eyes, or the Duchess of Devonshire's warning. Her own behavior had hardly been above reproach, and maybe it was better this way. Looking at Geoff, Lady Clem said, "I hope you'll be able to make a go of it, in spite of the gossips and the newspapers."

"What are you talking about?" Edith's voice grew querulous. "Geoffrey, what's she talking about?"

He sat back in his chair and laced his fingers together, bracing himself for a storm. "I believe she is referring to the existence of another lady. Is that right, Clem?"

"I would have had to be blind not to see, Geoffrey. You were never yourself after America." Wistfully, she added, "People there seem to have a different outlook on life, don't they?"

"Definitely." He explained as best he could then, relating a whitewashed tale of his arrival in Wyoming and his "purchase" of a portion of the Sunshine Ranch. "When I began to have feelings for Shelby, I wasn't even certain what it meant. I'd never truly been in love before. And then, there was a lot of guilt and confusion, as much for her well-being as my own—and for yours, Clementine, and my parents'. Also, I couldn't believe that Shelby could love me enough to give up her idyllic life in Wyoming to put up with all the nonsense of a noble existence."

"But she followed you to England, didn't she?" wondered Clementine. "And now she is the toast of London!"

"What in heaven's name does
that
mean?" Geoff's mother gasped.

"Surely you have read about Shelby Matthews in the newspapers? She has taken over Annie Oakley's part as the sharpshooter with the Wild West Show. Geoffrey and I went with the royal party to watch her perform."

"But I had no idea that Shelby would be there," he hastened to amend, "or that she had left Wyoming at all."

Edith Weston sat with one hand splayed over her heart, her lips pressed so tightly together that they were colorless. "This is the most appalling scandal I have ever known."

"Oh, for God's sake."

Clementine, meanwhile, felt oddly weightless, and was aware of a new sympathy toward Geoff. "Perhaps," she suggested, "I ought to give the two of you an opportunity to converse in private."

Geoff walked her out. They stopped at the top of the stairs and he bent to lightly kiss her cheek. "You're a brick, Clem. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it."

"Tell me that we'll both be happier in the long run."

"It's true... and I think you suspect as much."

"I don't know what will come of all this—but I do believe in possibilities now."

"Times have changed. The world of our ancestors is over—for me, at least. It's a new century." A wry smile curved his mouth. "I'd rather work for a living than marry for money."

"I'd give anything to see Her Grace's expression when you say
that!"

"What will you do now? Is there anything you need from me?" He paused. "You aren't going to elope with Ben Avery, are you?"

She gave him a big toothy smile. "No, but it has been an instructive flirtation. Benjamin's attentions made me realize that another man could give me more than you would." Hope and regret mingled in her eyes.

"Just so. You deserve much better than
me."

"I'm thinking of traveling to Italy for a few months, until the scandal dies down and your marriage is more accepted. I hope to have at least one marvelous romance while abroad, and then return home in triumph, a new woman—confident, worldly, and radiant!"

Geoff laughed. "Bravo! Do you know, that riding habit is particularly flattering. You're looking more jaunty already."

"I must go now. I have an assignation with your would-be brother-in-law this evening!"

They parted then on friendly terms, but Geoff's smile had faded by the time he returned to the drawing room. It was a devil of a role to be forced to play: the loving only son to a newly widowed mother. No one had ever taught him how to be a son at all, beyond Nanny's gentle instructions that he go in to his seldom-seen parents and deliver a little speech of some sort. Then Geoff had gone away to school, and most of his memories of parental communication were of windy lectures from his father during the occasional holiday, during which his mother would relentlessly critique his table manners, grooming, and vocabulary. Was it any wonder he'd withdrawn almost completely? And his parents hadn't seemed to mind, for they were either in separate houses, or journeying to the Continent, or doing anything other than making a family.

Shelby had been a revelation Geoff still found astonishing. Life with her was like a room full of warm light, and he had no intention of going back into the shadows.

"I shall have to meet this circus performer," the dowager duchess announced when her son sat down again. In his absence she had gotten hold of a small goblet of sherry which was now nearly empty.

He studied her austere, beautiful face, looking in vain for clues to her feelings. "I haven't formally asked her to marry me, Mother. She may not accept."

"Surely you don't doubt for one instant that this common cowgirl will leap at the chance to
ruin
our impeccable title by assuming the status of—" Edith closed her eyes dramatically and sobbed, "
Duchess of Aylesbury!
Oh, my dearest only son, it really is too, too dreadful to bear!"

"Don't you think you're pouring it on a bit thick?"

Her fine nostrils flared. "That would be impossible, given the dark depths of this subject. Not only must we bear the humiliation and scandal of your broken betrothal to dear Clementine, but you couldn't have chosen a more inappropriate woman to replace her."

"Shelby is a treasure. She is the product of a fine family."

"Where do they live?"

"In Deadwood, South Dakota."

"Really, Geoffrey, what do you take me for?
South Dakota?
It really is too horrifying!"

"You don't know the first thing about South Dakota, Mother. And Shelby graduated from Smith College in Massachusetts and she has a first-rate mind. I can assure you that she'll be able to hold her own with anyone she meets here in London."

"I'm afraid there is nothing you or she can do to erase the stigma of her current
occupation.
It almost seems a cruel hoax, a means to test the fortitude of this poor, broken woman who has lost her lifelong mate...." Edith drained the glass of sherry. "There is only one line of work that might possibly be more humiliating."

"See here, I have other appointments." Geoff stood up, his face stormy. "I have tried to pay you proper respect and include you in this discussion. However, if you cannot be civil—"

"Wait!" She caught his sleeve, and now her eyes were raw, her face unmasked. "Without the Beech fortune, how are you going to pay the death duties... and the taxes? It was becoming a terrible worry for your father; sometimes I think that was what killed him. Servants are demanding higher wages and everything's become so expensive! The cost of installing electricity and modern plumbing was such a shock. We even spoke of selling this house in order to hang on to Aylesbury Castle. Geoffrey, it was the mounting pressure from creditors that prompted your father to insist you do your part now and marry Clementine. Don't you see, our entire way of life is at stake!"

"Thank God for some honesty at last!" He drew his chair nearer to hers and let her clutch his hand. "Mother, I refuse to sell my soul for Lady Clem's fortune. We'll manage without it, even if taxes continue to rise and we're forced to sell one of the London homes to meet expenses. Our challenge is to adjust to the changing times. If we cannot, we'll die out completely."