“I forget everything,” Jemma observed.
“But you remember every chess game you ever played. My brain works that way when it comes to articles about sloths and French marmoses. It’s terribly inconvenient,” she said feelingly.
“Why?”
“Unladylike,” Poppy said, wrinkling her nose. “I can’t help it, though. I see a new book or an article on a subject that interests me and I become simply feverish to read it. My mother loathes that propensity.”
“How strange,” Jemma said. “I don’t mean you, but the very idea of feeling feverish about a sloth, three-toed or not, is peculiar. You must know that.”
“I never tell anyone. And you must promise to do the same.”
“Why doesn’t this Oxford fellow simply embrace you and your detailed brain, then?”
“I find that scientists are not always excited to be reminded about details,” Poppy said, looking rather surprised. “Surely accuracy is of the utmost importance when it comes to natural study, but you would be surprised, Jemma, at how inexact some people can be. Dr. Loudan is occasionally quite reluctant to drop an idea, even when the evidence is against him.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to a naturalist. There are very few of them wandering around Paris. So do you really think we could interest the inexact but Honorable George Loudan in Miss Fetlock?”
“The curious thing to me, Jemma, is why you are so interested in removing Miss Tatlock from your husband’s company. You acknowledge that he would never endanger his reputation. And she is a gently bred young lady. Your marriage is in no danger.”
“I already saw my husband in love with another woman,” Jemma said. “I left for Paris because I couldn’t bear to be around him in that circumstance. That’s one thing that Beaumont has never understood: marriage and reputation are not the most important things.”
“It’s a common problem,” Poppy said thoughtfully. “My mother would agree with Beaumont.”
Chapter 23
September 2
Charlotte didn’t know what to make of the letter when it arrived. She saw the ducal seal and snatched it from the house maid as if it might burn her fingers. And then she ran upstairs where May couldn’t see it.
Only to find to her disappointment that the seal was that of the Villiers family, and not that of the Beaumonts.Of course not. The Duke of Beaumont wouldn’t write to her. He would never do that. He was solid, respectable, honorable…
She came back to herself with a start and stared down at the note. It was obviously written by a servant, and it stated that the Duke of Villiers would like her to pay a call. The Duke of Villiers?An unmarried man? How on earth could she do that? Why would he even expect that she would consider it?
And why would he want her to visit? He barely exchanged two words with her at the dinner party given by the Duchess of Beaumont, which was the only time they’d met. And finally, who was Benjamin, the name mentioned in the letter?
The problem, Charlotte thought, was that her life was boring. She’d been on the shelf more years than she cared to count. Her mother had always said that she had an intelligent countenance, and she knew that she was honest, fairly virtuous and chaste. Not that she’d ever had a chance to be less than chaste, but a virtue is still a virtue, even if untested. But none of those qualities made life interesting.
May entered the room. “Is that a letter from Beaumont?” her sister demanded.
“How did you know that I received a letter?”
“The maid told me, of course,” May said impatiently. “I see that Mr. Muddle shall indeed have to have a word with His Grace. He is toying with your reputation in a most unkind fashion, sending you private letters.”
“Mr. Muddle will have nothing to do with the Duke of Beaumont!” Charlotte cried, horrified at the thought of her sister’s fiancé muddling his way through a conversation with the duke. “You couldn’t possibly ask it of him, May!”