Chapter 5

“No!” This salacious bit of information was clearly too much for Lady Gemma, because she bounded right out of the seat she had only just taken, her whole body aquiver. “I shan’t allow it.”

Cordelia took a step back at the full force of the girl’s determination. “I beg your pardon?”

“I shan’t allow it,” she said indignantly, her chin lifting with the same kind of passion one showed to king and country when Rule Britannia was being played by a full military band.

Clearly, the girl needed to be soothed. Cordy lifted a conciliatory hand. “I know it is quite a scandal—“

“Ha! Scandal! I say ha again.”

Hmmm. Either the girl was far more familiar with scandal than Cordy had first believed or another tack was needed, “The difficulty of understanding—”

“I understand very well, thank you,” Lady Gemma said tightly. “You don’t wish to be my sister.”

Now, that stopped Cordy. She blinked. When precisely had she said anything of that nature? It also managed to strike a surprising chord. She’d never actually had a sister. Brothers most certainly, irritating souls that they were, but the idea that she didn’t want a sister? She’d always longed to have another female to be that close to, to confide in. Her mother had been an impossibility. A distant, divinely tempestuous creature who didn’t foster anything but awe. “I never—”

“If you divorce my brother, you shan’t be my sister any longer and I won’t allow it.”

“Lady Gemma,” she said carefully, a sudden and foolish ache in her heart. Her own family was the oddest hodgepodge with archeology, not affection, being the bedrock which held it together and here, this ferocious girl was clinging onto her steadfastly. She almost wished they could be family. But the type of family Gemma desired was a concept Cordy couldn’t truly understand, not in the way that Lady Gemma did. “There are far more appropriate ladies to be your sister.”

“Bugger appropriate. I want you.”

A laugh bubbled out of her throat. She couldn’t help it. The girl standing so tenaciously before her meant every word she said and Cordelia couldn’t help seeing a large degree of herself in the young woman. For when Cordy wanted something, she let nothing stand in her way, and her bullheaded surety was only tainted by the gradually learned bitter truth about the nature of the world and the people in it. “You have no idea as to my character, Lady Gemma.”

“I am made aware of the most pertinent facts,” she said defensively.

“Indeed?” Cordy couldn’t stop her brows from rising. If the girl did know, she was quite brave to wish to ally herself with such a pariah. Or at least, a pariah in certain circles. In other circles, she was on her way to being the first gem. Despite her bizarre ways and dress, she’d held Paris in her palm.

“You are exactly the opposite of what grandmama wants for our family,” she said firmly, her eyes probing with the need to make herself clear, “and so you are exactly what we need.”

A sigh heaved past Cordelia’s lips. “If the dowager duchess would hate me then it—”

“Loathe,” Lady Gemma put in.

Cordy took the word in for a full moment before stuttering, “I-I beg your pardon?”

“This morning,” Lady Gemma supplied with a twirl of her fingertips. “She read the paper and said she loathed women of your sort and that they were a warning to me, lest I should fall into a similar pattern.”

A surprising flare of resentment and desire to trounce upon the dowager duchess’s upturned nose rushed through her. Perhaps, if the dowager duchess had come to her aid years ago, her life would not have headed down such an offensive path. But then again, if this was her attitude, she was rather glad she’d been left to rot, digging up petrified beetles. “Oh, she did, did she?”

“Yes.” Lady Gemma had the good grace to look a trifle ashamed of her grandmama before declaring, “And all I can say is I long to fall into a similar pattern.”

“No.” She rolled her eyes at the girlish ignorance and romanticism of the bumpy road that was a woman’s independence in a world owned and controlled by men. “You don’t.”

“Yes, I do. Anything would be better than the endless circle of boring parties filled with boring ladies. But you! You have been the lover of a sheik, a Russian prince, and a French duc.” Gemma let out a sigh of sheer delight, her face rapt.

That was not actually true. She’d kept company with them as intellectual equals but she had never, ever been their lover. In fact, she’d never even been kissed, so separate from the world of amour she’d been.

Taking this aspect away from Gemma’s statement, these relationships weren’t even the beginning of the scandalous things Cordelia had done. If Gemma admired such behavior, Jack’s sister was headed for ruin if someone didn’t take her in hand. But who was she to tell the girl she was wrong?

Society, dictated by men, was designed to steal all the individuality and power from its women, and ensure they were far beneath the lords who controlled them.

Smythe opened the door and entered with a small, tiered tea tray and behind him Kathryn, Duchess of Darkwell, strode in, her verdant skirts whooshing. A cat and cream smile tilted her lips the moment she spotted their guest. “Lady Gemma! What a pleasant surprise.”

Lady Gemma beamed. “Your Grace.”

“Kathryn,” Cordy hissed. “Do you have any idea what is transpiring?”

Kate tossed back her golden head and let out a delicious laugh. “I do hate to tell you, but you are the talk of the town, my dear. I think you have even replaced me as the most scandalous woman in London.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded. She was well aware that Kathryn, once free of her now deceased husband, had gone on a mad whirl of freedom. Apparently, the fellow had been the sort of man who believed that a woman should behave like a virgin, even after her wedding night. Kate’s life had changed entirely when he had vacated this world. In fact, it had been her determination to embrace a naughty life that had led her into the arms of her present husband, the Duke of Darkwell, formerly known as the Duke of Debauchery.

Kathryn shrugged her shoulders, her breasts pressing at the square cut bodice of her green gown. “I thought it best to ease you into the news rather than have you read such details in the sheets.”

“You thought?” she echoed. The room spun and she felt suddenly quite ill.

Kate turned to Smythe. “Bring a bottle of brandy. I think Her Grace has had quite a shock.”

“Splendid!” cheered Lady Gemma, clapping her gloved hands together.

“None for you,” warned Cordelia. The last thing she was going to have was Lady Gemma three sheets to the wind when her mother arrived.

Lady Gemma lowered her chin and said mischievously, “I thought you didn’t want to be my sister.”

“That’s not exactly—”

“So, you need not censure my behavior.”

Cordelia threw herself down into the nearest chair and placed a hand over her suddenly throbbing eyes. “Fine. Drink brandy. Drink the bottle and dance a jig in the square.”

“What a spectacular proposition,” teased Kate. “I say we all do it. Three bottles, Smythe.”

Smythe didn’t even wrinkle his forehead or bat a lash at the extravagant and ill-advised request. “The 83 madam, or the 76?”

Kate gasped, fluttering her hand over her bosom in mock horror. “Need you ask?”

“The 76 then,” Smythe said flatly before he bowed and exited with the fleet feet needed when heading after the special vintage reserved for moments of disaster such as a dramatic spat with her duke, or the ever threatening death of the monarch.

“Would you like to see it?” proposed Lady Gemma with a decided hint of breathless anticipation.

Cordy lifted her head, a Herculean task, for the moment and dared herself to open her eyes. “See what exactly?”

Lady Gemma brandished her reticule. “Snodgrass’s comments,” she gushed with a note of worship that one often sees in those who are about to scamper over burning coals.

Cordelia goggled. “You have them with you?”

“Oh, I never go anywhere without something sensational to read, and I’ve already read your report several times. Its quite inspiring.”

“Dear God,” groaned Cordelia.

“For all your years of unrepressed living,” Kate turned slightly and readjusted a flounce on her skirts, “you aren’t taking this very well, Cordy.”

“Cordy?” piped Gemma. “May I call you Cordy? I wish I could have such a delightful nick name.”

“Yes. Yes, you may call me Cordy,” Cordelia said quickly before the girl could start in any further on the marvelousness of her name, and then swung her gaze to Kate and narrowed her eyes. “And I am not taking this well as it runs contrary to all my plans.”

Kathryn waggled a ruby ringed finger at her. “As a good friend once told me, plans are made to be changed.”

Cordelia sat up straighter. “I do not concur. To be freed from my husband—”

“Oh, please don’t!” wailed, Gemma.

The sound was enough to shatter glass or unman a regiment. “Gemma. . .” Cordelia began slowly, “May I call you Gemma?”

Gemma smiled graciously. “Please do.”

“Gemma, you must begin to accept—”

The doorknocker sounded with a resounding thud on the front step.

“It’s Mother!” crowed Gemma. “You shall love her. You two are birds of similar a feather, after all.” Gemma fumbled with her reticule. “Shall I read the Snodgrass’s bit over our brandy? I know she would love it—” Lady Gemma’s brow wrinkled, “Though she would prefer champagne to brandy. She says ladies only drink champagne and as long as one adds a bit of fruit it doesn’t matter the time of day—”

A whimper filled the room. Her whimper? Cordy winced. It certainly sounded so. She had stood toe to toe with Arab princes, cracked brained archeologists, and French aristocrats pudding brained on absinthe. The Hunt family? They’re madness dwelt in a whole other realm of madness.

Cordelia drew in a deep breath. Everything was going to be well. She’d soon have the situation back into her usually very confident and capable hands. She smoothed her palms down the front of her frock determined to find the bright side and she rose from her chair, as ready as she’d ever be to meet her mother-in-law. At least, small favors, Gemma had yet to begin imbibing. She wouldn’t have to explain a soused young lady to her mama.

Smythe entered, a tray laden with three decanters of brandy balanced easily upon his snowy gloved hand as he announced, “His Grace, the Duke of Hunt.”

Cordelia dug her nails into her palms, willing herself to disappear. She’d been wrong. So very wrong. Things could get worse. Because clearly, the Gods of Fate had decided to take her situation from bizarre to hell in the space of one English tea time.