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Standard disclaimer.
Arthur kept busy for the rest of the day.
He had a full slate of appointments that afternoon, all related to the business of his estates.
But it still wasn't enough.
All his meetings with solicitors and land agents and secretaries...they were like cannonballs stuffed in a crate.
They were weighty, and they took up space...but they didn't make the crate truly full.
Thoughts of Gwen slipped in, to fill every void, like a million grains of sand.
Or crystals of sugar, it might be more appropriate to say.
Somehow, he made it to late afternoon, when he surrendered to the attentions of his valet.
He emerged an hour later...smooth-shaven, fully dressed, and completely unprepared, for the vision coming down the staircase.
'Good Lord!'
One look at her and Arthur knew it was over.
The evening was a failure before it began.
No one would ever believe her to be a common serving girl. Not tonight, not looking like this.
She wore a gown in deep, lush pink, with gauzy layers of skirts billowing out, from a fitted, off-the-shoulder bodice.
She wore matching elbow-length gloves. And her hair was curled, looped, and pinned...but in a way, that managed to look effortlessly lovely and elegant.
Quite a trick, that. Frieda deserved a rise in wages.
She carried herself well, too.
Her gracious neck was a smooth, slender column, and her bare shoulders...ah, her shoulders looked sculpted from moonlight. Delicate and serene, mysterious and feminine.
A rope of pale amethysts dipped sensuously above her décolletage, catching the light with a thousand facets.
He was a duke and a libertine, he reminded himself.
He'd seen many a beautiful woman in his life. Finer gowns than this, more lavish jewels than these. Rationally, he knew that Guinevere Campbell could not eclipse everything and everyone, who had come before her. And yet, somehow she did.
There wasn't any one feature he could point to, or any particular gesture she made. It was just...
'Her. I'll take her.'
"Well?" Gwen prompted.
Finally, Arthur looked her in the eyes...those bright brown, cat-tipped, intelligent eyes, set in a heart-shaped face.
They were anxious tonight, and transparently vulnerable.
'Lord above. She has no idea.' She had him enraptured, to the point of drooling incoherence, and she had absolutely no idea.
She lifted an eyebrow.
'She's waiting for your reaction. React. But not too much. Only the appropriate amount. A well-chosen word or two.'
What he said was, "Guh."
'Oh, hell!' Had that unformed syllable, actually escaped his throat? Apparently it had.
Gwen blinked at him.
"What?"
He cleared his throat with a loud harrumph, then searched for a way to amend his statement.
"Good," he pronounced, clearing his throat again. "I said good."
A pretty flush rose on Gwen's cheeks. Still, she bit her lip, looking hesitant.
"What kind of good?" she asked. "Good as in rather bad, which aids our purpose? Or 'good' as in 'actually good,' and you're displeased?"
Arthur sighed inwardly.
What was he to say?
'Good as in...Good God, you are the most radiant, lovely thing I've seen in all my life, and I'm a speechless, shuddering fool before you. Does that clear matters?'
"Good as in good," he said. "I'm not displeased."
Gwen's mouth pulled to the side.
"Then that's...good."
This was now officially the most inane conversation, in which Arthur had ever been a participant and that included a drunken debate with Leon, over ostrich racing.
"The color isn't too awful?" she asked, and twisted a fold of the skirt. "The draper called it 'dewy petal,' but your mother said the shade was more of a frosted berry. What do you say?"
"I'm a man, Miss Campbell. Unless we're discussing nipples, I don't see the value in these distinctions."
Her lips pursed into a chastening pout.
"Whatever shade it is, it looks well on you." 'Too well.'
He tugged his black evening gloves on and gathered his hat from the butler.
"Let's be going."
The carriage was readied and waiting.
Arthur turned to Gwen, who obviously needed help, what with those ungainly skirts.
Without hesitation, she took the hand he offered and clutched it tightly, borrowing his strength.
The warm clasp of her satin-clad fingers, nearly undid him.
He was unsteady himself, as he made his own way into the coach and sat across from her, on the rear-facing seat.
He turned his head to the window, needing to bring himself under control. They were only just leaving the house, and the whole evening lay ahead.
When they reached the place for the river crossing and alighted from the coach, twilight had descended.
The air was heavy, with wisps of fog and shadow. And an air of romantic mystery lingered, despite all Arthur's attempts to discredit it.
"We're going to cross the river in boats?" Gwen asked, eyeing the boat launch with alarm. Her grip tightened on his arm.
He nodded.
"It's the only way to Vauxhall. Eventually, there's to be a bridge, but it isn't complete."
"I've never been in a boat. Not once in my life."
"Never? But you live by the sea."
"I know. It's absurd, isn't it? Sometimes, the ladies go boating, but I've never had a reason to join in."
"Don't be frightened." He reached for her. "Here."
Helping her into the boat, was even more precarious, than handing her into the carriage had been.
He went first, wedging his boots fast against the floorboards and steadying his balance.
Gwen accepted his hand and took a cautious step onto a seat, near the bow. But just then, the driver launched the boat and she stumbled.
Arthur had to catch her by both arms, as she fell against his chest.
"Oh, bollocks." She struggled to correct herself, as the boat lurched.
And his stomach nearly capsized.
He had a vision...a brief, waking nightmare of a thought...in which, she tumbled straight into the black water and all those heavy, embellished skirts dragged her straight to the depths.
"Don't move," he told her, tightening his grip. "Not yet."
Arthur held Gwen close and tight.
For long moments, they stood absolutely still...swaying in each other's arms, while the boat regained its equilibrium.
"Are you well?" he whispered.
She nodded.
"Your heart is racing," he said.
"So is yours."
He smiled a little.
"Fair enough."
When the boat had finally steadied, he helped her onto the seat and motioned to the water-man, who ferried them across the Thames, in smooth, even strokes.
"See?" he murmured, keeping her close. "There's nothing to fear. Just imagine, we're traveling through that crystal cabinet in the poem. On our way to another world. Another England. Another London with its Tower. Another Thames and other hills."
Gwen relaxed against his shoulder.
"On a little lovely moony night."
"Exactly so."
There she went again, enchanting him.
Arthur had never been the fanciful sort, even as a boy. But when he was with her, the world was different.
She forced him to see things through fresh eyes.
Suddenly, his library was the eighth wonder of the world, and Corinthian columns merited blasphemy.
A ferry across the Thames was an epic journey, and a kiss...a kiss was everything.
Deep down, beneath the overworked, sharp-tongued serving girl, he saw a woman who craved the poetry in life.
She'd never been given anything...not even favorable odds.
But there was a liveliness in her spirit, that fed on simple possibility...it soaked it up like a wick and shone the brighter for it.
And tonight?
Arthur tilted his head westward and regarded the setting sun. Less than an hour from now, her world was going to explode with a brilliant possibility.
And he wanted nothing more than to be near her, when it did.
Gwen found Vauxhall rather overwhelming. And that was before they even entered the place.
When they disembarked on the far side of the river, her stomach took several moments to cease bobbing.
They ascended a long flight of stairs, leading up the riverbank, to a grand entrance gate.
The higher they climbed, the louder the music grew.
'Cor,' she thought. She didn't say it aloud, not tonight. But it was the constant thought in her mind, as they made their way through the gate and into the gardens.
'Cor, cor, cor, cor, cor.'
She didn't know nature could be tamed to this degree.
The greens were perfectly flat. The shrubs were pruned in squat shapes. The trees were planted in straight lines.
Stately colonnades ran in various directions, marking covered pathways.
And at the end of each aisle, vast paintings were hung. But from this distance, she couldn't quite make them out.
She glimpsed a white orchestra pavilion, in the form of a giant seashell, with carvings and embellishments all over it.
Suddenly, she realized her mouth had been hanging agape, for the past few minutes. And the duke had noticed.
He gave her an amused look.
"It's growing dark," she said. "Should we head toward the pavilion?"
"Not yet," he said, catching her arm. He guided her off the main walk, into a darkening grove of trees, away from the colonnades.
"What is it?"
"Something is about to happen, and I want you to see it. I want to be with you when you see it."
She rose up on her toes, craning her neck to look in all directions.
"What is it we're waiting to see?"
"It's starting," he said, turning her head. "Look."
Gwen looked. She caught sight of a glowing orb. One single ball of light, hanging in the distance.
She blinked, and there were two of them.
And then ten.
And then...thousands.
A warm glow spread through the gardens, like a wave of light, touching a red lamp here, a blue or green, there.
Breathless with delight, she tilted her head back.
The trees above them were strung with lamps on every branch.
The glow traveled from one to the other, and before long the entire grove was illuminated.
The effect was similar to standing beneath a stained-glass church window, at the sunniest part of the day.
Except, this was night, and all the colors had a luminous richness.
The lamps were like a thousand jewels, hanging from every tree and carved stone archway.
Gwen couldn't even come up with words.
She laughed and clapped a hand to her cheek.
"How do they do it?" she asked. "How do they light them all at once?"
"There's a system of fuses," Arthur explained. "They only need to light a few, and the spark travels to all the lamps."
"It's magical," she said.
"Yes," he said, softly. "I think it is, rather."
She turned to the duke, giddy with the beauty of it. But he wasn't looking around at the thousands of lit globes hanging from the trees.
He was watching her.
A shiver passed over her bare shoulders and she crossed her arms to warm herself.
"Let me," he said, placing his gloved hands on her upper arms, then rubbing up and down.
The supple leather slid over her bare skin, warm and buttery. It was a lovely gesture, but it wasn't doing a dratted thing to cure her of goose flesh.
His gaze caressed her mouth.
"Perhaps, coming here was a mistake."
"No," she insisted, hoping her words weren't drowned, by the mad thumping of her heart. "No, I promise I can do this."
"Arthur!" The voice carried to them through the glen. Gwen turned to spy Lord Leon waving at them, from the colonnade. "Come along, then. We've a booth over this way."
"That's my cue," she said, giving Arthur a wink. "Time for me to earn my thousand pounds. Prepare for disaster."
They made their way to the colonnade and found the booth Leon had reserved.
Gwen slipped away to mingle with the group.
Arthur watched her laugh and joke, sip champagne and devour slice after slice of wafer-thin ham.
For his part, he stood to the side, sipping brandy from his pocket flask and finally coming to grips, with a painful truth...he needed to find some new friends.
Looking around, he spotted an acquaintance, William, with his Drury Lane songstress in tow, and Leon, who had taken up with a particular widow again.
A few well-dressed prostitutes hovered at the edges of the group, hoping for their glasses to be filled, before they wandered away.
Without even making an effort, Gwen was the most refined woman in the booth.
If she made any ill-informed remarks about the Corn Laws, no one would care.
All the halfway decent fellows, who'd once been part of their circle, had drifted away in recent years...some were married, some had come into their titles, and most had settled down.
Arthur would have liked to drift away, too...without the marrying part...but it was harder to leave a circle, when you were the center of it.
"When are you opening the Cottage this year, Pendragon?" William asked, one arm draped about his mistress' powdered shoulders. "Ruby here fancies a holiday in the country. She'll bring friends. Quite friendly friends."
The painted blonde, gave him a coy promise of a smile.
In years past, Arthur had spent the colder months at Winterset Cottage.
The house was the first thing he'd purchased, after coming of age.
Even with six family properties, he'd felt the need for a place of his own.
Other men had bachelor apartments. He was a duke...he had a bachelor estate.
There, for several years after leaving university, he and his Oxford friends, had taken the country house-party tradition, to new heights...or lows...of dissipation.
Always the generous host, he had famously opened his door to any and all guests...especially the pretty, female variety.
Days were for sleeping...nights were for gambling, drinking...and other vices of the flesh.
The Cottage had become such an institution, that when Arthur failed to open the house last winter, rumors of his insolvency had circulated.
He hadn't been broke, of course. Just broken.
"You are opening the Cottage this year, aren't you?" William asked.
"I haven't decided," he replied. "Perhaps not."
"Oh, come on, Arthur. You must. Last winter, I was forced to go home to Shropshire. A crashing bore, I tell you. The old man's after me to join the Church."
"Second sons and their problems," Arthur said, internally smiling, at saying something Gwen might have said.
He wasn't interested in opening his house, just so William and Leon and every other overgrown adolescent in England, could laze about barefoot on his furniture and organize drunken billiard tournaments, that lasted three days and three nights straight.
It had been good fun when they were youths, but now...he supposed his patience and his generosity had run out.
Or had been redirected.
He could see himself opening that house for one reason only...and her name was Guinevere.
As soon as the idea flickered through his skull, his mind pounced on it.
He knew she had her dream of opening a bookshop in Spinster Cove. But perhaps, she dreamed of that, simply because, she couldn't conceive of more.
He could give her more.
She turned to him then, as though she could feel the force of his new, visceral intentions.
Sidling her way through the crowded booth, she made her way to his side.
"Lord Leon has asked me to dance," she whispered. "I haven't the faintest idea of the steps. If I time my stumble at just the right moment, I think I can take us both into the punch bowl. Will you give me a ten-pound bonus?"
Arthur smiled despite himself.
"Twenty."
He watched her, as she drifted away on Leon's arm, and headed out to join the colorful whirl of dancers.
He couldn't marry her, he was thinking. He couldn't marry at all.
But he could take care of her, see that she never struggled again.
At the age of twenty-three, she'd worked enough for a lifetime. She shouldn't have to toil anymore.
She deserved to be spooned delicacies, pampered with the softest linens, waited on by a dozen maids, and bathed in deep copper tubs.
Arthur sighed wistfully, as Leon swung Gwen through the dance.
In that blush-pink gown, her light figure was a dream.
He hoped she was enjoying herself, at least a little.
In a more just world, she would have been given her own coming-out ball, with dozens of admirers queuing for her hand.
Then again, he could admire her enough, for dozens of men. He couldn't take his eyes from her now.
The dancers turned a corner, and he caught a glimpse of her face.
'Damn!'
He recognized that expression she was wearing. And he didn't like it.
Before he'd even decided on a course, his feet were in motion. He had to get to her, immediately.
Something was wrong.
Stay safe!