Private Arrangements

275 Pages·2008·1.41 MB·English

by  Thomas Sherry

Acknowledgments
Because I'm sure to forget someone, if you are reading this now, let me say
thank you. Thank you for everything.
Now on to specifics.
Miss Snark, for her unqualified recommendation of Kristin Nelson via her
snarkalicious—and much lamented—blog. Kristin Nelson, for living up to every
last one of those recommendations and then some. Sara Megibow, for being the
first person besides myself to read this book, and emailing Kristin late at night
telling her she'd better get reading too.
Caitlin Alexander, my editor and Fairy Godmother— for making me feel like
Cinderella. Everyone at Bantam, for treating me so well and publishing me so
beautifully.
All my friends, classmates, and professors at the UT MPA program. It was a
great year and I think of you with such fondness—in particular, Professor Fabio,
who should have graced my cover.
Everyone at the Harrington Fellowship program, for everything. And putting my
picture in the New York Times on top of it.
All my friends and sisters from Austin RWA. You guys are the best.
Janine, Jane, and Sybil. Bloggers rock.
Sue Yuen—for her excellent advice on Schemes of Love and for all the good
times.
Mary Balogh, Jane Feather, and Eloisa James—for their generous praises. I hope
to have the pleasure of meeting you and the honor of cleaning your houses.
My husband and sons, three of the cutest and kindest men in the world under one
roof. The wonderful family I married in to, everyone unfailingly supportive of
my dreams, especially my grandfather-in-law, who backed up his prayers for my
eventual publication with donations to that effect. You see, Appachen, it has
come true.

About the Author
Sherry Thomas arrived on American soil at age thirteen. Within a year, with
whatever English she'd scraped together and her trusty English-Chinese
dictionary by her side, she was already plowing through the 600-page behemoth
historical romances of the day. The vocabulary she gleaned from those stories of
unquenchable ardor propelled her to great successes on the SAT and the GRE
and came in very handy when she turned to writing romances herself.
Sherry has a B.S. in economics from Louisiana State University and a master's
degree in accounting from the University of Texas at Austin. She lives in central
Texas with her husband and two sons. When she's not writing, she enjoys
reading, playing computer games with her boys, and reading some more.
Visit her on the web at www.sherrythomas.com.

Private
Arrangements

CONTENTS
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine

About The Author
Preview for Delicious
Copyright

For my mother. There are few joys in life greater than that of having you as
my mother
To the memory of my grandfather. I will always miss you.
And to the memory of my grandmother, for loving books as much as I did.
Chapter One
London
8 May 1893
O
nly one kind of marriage ever bore Society's stamp of approval.
Happy marriages were considered vulgar, as matrimonial felicity rarely kept
longer than a well-boiled pudding. Unhappy marriages were, of course, even
more vulgar, on a par with Mrs. Jeffries's special contraption that spanked forty
bottoms at once: unspeakable, for half of the upper crust had experienced it
firsthand.
No, the only kind of marriage that held up to life's vicissitudes was the
courteous marriage. And it was widely recognized that Lord and Lady Tremaine
had the most courteous marriage of them all.
In the ten years since their wedding, neither of them had ever uttered an
unkind word about the other, not to parents, siblings, bosom friends, or
strangers. Moreover, as their servants could attest, they never had spats, big or
small; never embarrassed each other; never, in fact, disagreed on anything at all.
However, every year some cheeky debutante fresh from the schoolroom would
point out—as if it weren't common knowledge—that Lord and Lady Tremaine
lived on separate continents and had not been seen together since the day after
their wedding.
Her elders would shake their heads. Foolish young girl. Wait 'til she heard
about her beau's piece on the side. Or fell out of love with the man she married.
Then she'd understand what a wonderful arrangement the Tremaines had:
civility, distance, and freedom from the very beginning, unencumbered by
tiresome emotions. Indeed, it was the most perfect marriage.
Therefore, when Lady Tremaine filed for divorce on grounds of Lord
Tremaine's adultery and desertion, chins collided with dinner plates throughout
London's most pedigreed dining rooms. Ten days later, as news circulated of
Lord Tremaine's arrival on English soil for the first time in a decade, the same
falling jaws dented many an expensive carpet from the heart of Persia.
The story of what happened next spread like a well-fed gut. It went something
tantalizingly like this: A summons came at the Tremaine town house on Park
Lane. Goodman, Lady Tremaine's faithful butler, answered the bell. On the other
side of the door stood a stranger, one of the most remarkable-looking gentlemen
Goodman had ever come across—tall, handsome, powerfully built, an imposing
presence.
“Good afternoon, sir,” Goodman said placidly. A representative of the
Marchioness of Tremaine, however impressed, neither gawked nor gushed.
He expected to be offered a calling card and a reason for the call. Instead, he
was handed the gentleman's headgear. Startled, he let go of his hold on the
doorknob and took the satin-trimmed top hat. In that instant, the man walked
past him into the vestibule. Without a backward glance or an explanation for this
act of intrusion, he began pulling off his gloves.
“Sir,” Goodman huffed. “You do not have permission from the lady of the
house to enter.”
The man turned around and shot Goodman a glance that, to the butler's shame,
made him want to curl up and whimper. “Is this not the Tremaine residence?”
“It is, sir.” The reiteration of sir escaped Goodman, though he hadn't intended
for it to happen.
“Then kindly inform me, since when does the master of the house require
permission from the lady to enter into his own domain?” The man held his
gloves together in his right hand and slapped them quietly against the palm of his
left, as if toying with a riding crop.
Goodman didn't understand. His employer was the Queen Elizabeth of her
time: one mistress and no master. Then the horror dawned. The man before him
was the Marquess of Tremaine, the marchioness's long-absent, good-as-dead
husband and heir to the Duke of Fairford.
“I do beg your pardon, sir.” Goodman held on to his professional calm and
took Lord Tremaine's gloves, though he was suddenly perspiring. “We have had
no notice of your arrival. I shall have your chambers prepared immediately. May
I offer you some refreshments in the meanwhile?”
“You may. And you may see to the unloading of my luggage,” said Lord
Tremaine. “Is Lady Tremaine at home?”
Goodman could not detect any unusual inflection in Lord Tremaine's tone. It
was as if he had simply come in from an afternoon snooze at his club. After ten
years! “Lady Tremaine is taking a constitutional in the park, sir.”
Lord Tremaine nodded. “Very good.”
Goodman instinctively trotted after him, the way he'd trail a feral beast if it
happened to have made it past the front door. It was only half a minute later, as
Lord Tremaine turned about and raised a brow, that Goodman realized he had
already been dismissed.

Something about his wife's town house disturbed Lord Tremaine.
It was surprisingly elegant. He had half-expected to see the kind of interior
he'd become accustomed to in the houses of his neighbors on lower Fifth
Avenue: grandiose, gilded, aiming only to recall the last days of Versailles.
She had a few chairs from that era, but they had held their share of velvet-clad
bottoms and looked comfortable rather than luxurious. Neither did he encounter
the heavy sideboards and unchecked proliferation of bric-a-brac that were firmly
associated, in his mind, with English homes.
If anything, her residence bore an uncanny resemblance to a certain villa in
Turin, at the foot of the Italian Alps, in which he had spent a few happy weeks
during his youth—a house with wallpapers of soft antique gold and muted
aquamarine, faience pots of orchids atop slender wrought-iron stands, and
durable, well-made furniture from the previous century.
During an entire boyhood of decamping from one domicile to the next, the
villa had been the only place, other than his grandfather's estate, where he'd felt