I'll See You in Paris

by Michelle Gable

  Win dropped his jaw in feigned outrage. He was not used to getting this much crap from someone not already tired from years of his gaffes and tomfoolery. Astonishingly, Win didn’t mind. He’d forgotten a good ribbing didn’t always bruise.

  “A puppet show?” he said, laughing.

  “I can already tell this story is going to be ridiculous. Win and Gads. It’s absurd!”

  “Why, they’re jolly good names!” Win said, letting himself in on the joke. “Succinct! Punctuated!” He swung his arm twice, much like someone named Win or Gads might do. “No nonsense.”

  “No nonsense? Gads?”

  “They’re nicknames. Practical. Not born of romantic notions, Prunus laurocerasus. I won’t even start in on your surname, though I should.”

  “Both of my names are unimpeachable.”

  “A matter of opinion, that. If it makes you feel any better, Gads is officially Lord George William blah-de-blah cack-and-cobblers. He’s the youngest brother so his title is irrelevant. Since our childhood, and on through Eton, he’s always been Gads to me.”

  “Gads,” Pru said a third time. “I can’t handle these names. Gads. Egads. Egads, that’s one crazy bloke! Mad as a hatter!”

  “Your British accent needs some work. And whilst you think you’re being funny, ‘egads’ is often ascribed to him by any one of his three wives, past or present.” Win shook his head, still laughing. “As with most things, I blame my keen interest in Lady Marlborough—”

  “Obsession.”

  “I blame my diligent duchess scholarship on Gads and his family. Mind you, he’s merely the bumbling younger brother. His older brother John inherited the family dukedom, as big brothers do.”

  “Yes, yes,” Pru said. “Happens all the time. If only I had a big brother to inherit ours.”

  “If you’ll let me finish,” he said, grinning. “Gads’s older brother inherited the family title late last year, after marrying his third wife, the daughter of a Swedish count. Gads doesn’t expect it to last long.”

  “Sounds like he’d know.”

  “Nevertheless wife number three can say that she was at one time hitched to the eleventh Duke of Marlborough.”

  “The same Marlborough as in…” Pru pointed toward Mrs. Spencer’s room. “That one?”

  “Yes! Of course ‘that one’! There’s only one Duke of Marlborough! This isn’t a corporate position. It’s a title. It’s inherited. Honestly, Miss Valentine, I don’t even know if I can carry forward.”

  “Stand down, mate,” she said. “And please forgive me. We Americans aren’t used to inheriting titles. Generally we have to put in a little effort for that kind of recognition.”

  “Right, right. Nothing for free. Only working to the teeth like the busy beavers that you are.” Win rolled his eyes. “In any event, Gads’s loaf-about, un-American brother inherited the title from their father, who was the tenth Duke of Marlborough. Because, as you may have learned during your storied tenure at university, ten comes before eleven.”

  Now it was Pru’s turn to roll her eyes.

  “Shall I write that down?” she asked.

  “Yes, you’d better,” he said. “The tenth duke, in addition to being Gads’s and John’s father, was also the dreaded stepson of our lady of the manor.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Mrs. Spencer aka Lady Marlborough, who married the ninth duke. She did not get along with ol’ Duke Ten. At all.”

  “So the duchess is…” She paused. “Gads’s grandmother?”

  Win nodded.

  “Mrs. Spencer is your best friend’s grandmother?” Pru said. “Have you told her? I feel like she should know.”

  “Technically she’s the stepgranny, but close enough. And, no, the woman isn’t aware of my relationship with Gads. Of course she claims she’s not the duchess. Gads’s real grandmother was Consuelo Vanderbilt.”

  “Coon!” Pru said with a small clap. “Mrs. Spencer’s best pal.”

  “You’ve got it. As you already know, Gladys succeeded Coon as the Duchess of Marlborough.”

  “Quick way to end a friendship.”

  “Eh.” Win shrugged. “Coon was thrilled to be done with the highly arranged marriage, as was hers with Marlborough Nine. He went by Sunny, short for Sunderland, which was no referendum on his temperament. The man was quite gloomy. Anyhow, Sunny and Coon married so he could have her cash, she his class. When they divorced, both were relieved to shed the façade.”

  “Mrs. Spencer told me that she didn’t get married until age forty,” Pru said. “When did Coon and Sunny divorce?”

  “Shortly before Sunny and Gladys wed, though they’d been apart for nearly two decades by the time everything was finalized. Coon remarried within months of signing the papers. So did Gladys and Sunny, who had been traveling together as a couple for a dozen years.”

  “And Gladys first declared her love for him a dozen years before that,” Pru said. “Nearly a lifetime of loving the same person. Can you imagine? How lucky.”

  “Lucky? Most would disagree. As brilliantly as Gladys and Sunny carried on as lovers, once married they bickered like cats. I think they loved each other so much, and for so long, that their expectations were too lofty. Plus his family hated her. Marlborough Ten, Gads’s father, was out of the house by the time they wed but was incensed that the woman weaseled her way into their good name. When Nine kicked it before they could divorce, Ten was livid because Gladys got to keep her title.”

  “Poor Mrs. Spencer. Lady Marlborough. To have your new family hate you.”

  Pru knew a little something about that, albeit to a lesser extent. They never made it to the wedding, and Charlie had no sons to bicker with or titles to give away, but the Kelloggs definitely viewed her lack of pedigree as an insult to their name. They never should’ve let their Golden Son attend such an anarchic college.

  “They didn’t all hate her,” Win said. “Her other stepson, Gads’s favorite uncle Ivor, got along famously with the new duchess. But he hardly mattered, what with his outright lack of dukedom.”

  “No wonder she was so miserable living at Blenheim,” Pru said. “She called it a dungeon or a prison or something.”

  “The phrase you’re looking for is a ‘monolithic beast of a supposed home.’” Win tapped his desk. “One of the few morsels she’s given us so far.”

  “So Blenheim was their family seat. And because of your friendship with Egads, you summered there as a kid and let yourself get wrapped up in the lore of the duchess. She probably made your family look downright boring.”

  “That’s the short of it,” he said.

  “Do they still live there? At Blenheim?”

  “They do. But each year, the family opens up new sections of the palace to tourists in order to keep the lights on, while they themselves consolidate into smaller and smaller portions of their once massive, private home. Moral of the story? Not even Vanderbilt money lasts forever.”

  “It’s strange,” Pru said. “If the Marlboroughs were so vexed by the duchess, why did they keep talking about her? Especially after she left?”

  “They still talk about her, to this day. Forty years after she disappeared.”

  “But she was doing them a favor, right? By not hanging around?”

  “The dowager duchess definitely did not ‘hang around.’”

  “She got out of their hair,” Pru said, thinking of Charlie’s family. “Of her own accord.”

  Were they complaining about her back in Boston? That bohemian orphan. What a blight on an otherwise storied family.

  “You’d think they’d appreciate Gladys’s efforts,” Pru added, with a sniff.

  “Yes. You’d think. But Gads’s father cursed her name until the day he died, which, as I said, was only a few months back.”

  “What about Gads and his brother? How did they feel about the duchess?”

  “Gads is and was indifferent. He’s a reasonable chap, about this anyway. Never met her, so reserved his judgment. John, on the other han
d, inherited not only his father’s title but also his unending hatred of the woman. His various wives haven’t been particularly chuffed either, some dowager duchess with a better name than they could hope to have.”

  “My head is spinning with all these wives,” Pru said. Or maybe it was the wine. “How many are we talking about here?”

  “Gads’s brother married his third last year, the aforementioned daughter-of-a-count. His second wife, a Greek woman, was a drug addict. Not unexpected when your first husband ditches you for Jackie Kennedy.”

  “Six marriages between Gads and his brother,” Pru said. “Throw in the ninth duke, and I think I’ve counted eight in your story so far. Sounds like the Marlboroughs have horrible romantic tastes. Or bum luck. Or both.”

  Pru leaned back onto Win’s bed. She normally had more couth than to lounge all over some strange man’s bedsheets, but she was also not normally so pissed.

  “Most people have horrible romantic tastes,” Win said. “Why do you think I remain unmarried?”

  “Didn’t think it was really your choice,” she said sleepily.

  “Goodness. Does the so-called second wave of feminism also include browbeating tatty writers? Listen, when you’ve got a title and a palace to maintain, sometimes you marry for the wrong reasons. If money is a ‘wrong reason,’ which one could argue either way.”

  “So is that why everyone hated Gladys Deacon? Because she wasn’t a Vanderbilt?”

  “That’s part of it. Also some believed she put a curse on the castle and the land. It’s why the money was never enough. The love was never enough. It’s why people left the home more mucked up than when they walked in. As the story goes, shortly after Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford visited, they decided to divorce.”

  “A curse? And the Marlboroughs think she is crazy?”

  “Jinxes aside, she flat offended them. Gladys Deacon was brilliant and eccentric and cared little about decorum. She refused to play by their meticulously crafted script. Year after year, they ranted about her, told endless stories of her scandals and misdeeds. Because of these things, as a lad, this hellcat mesmerized me. And as a young man, I picked up on something else. Once you waded through all the shite there remained a begrudging respect. Or as Berenson put it: ‘One admires her and one is horrified with her at the same moment.’”

  “I experience that very sensation once per day, minimum,” Pru said with a tired, eyes-closed chuckle. “Mrs. Spencer and the duchess must be the same person. So, did you think the house was cursed? As a kid? I’ll bet it was creepy as hell.”

  “Miss Valentine!” he said, more offended by this than the puppet show comment. “Blenheim is not ‘creepy as hell.’ It’s magical. It was my childhood.”

  “Geez. No need to get all ‘tetchy.’ It’s just a house.”

  “JUST A HOUSE! I suppose, if the earth is merely a clod of dirt, the oceans a place for a dip. Blenheim is visually staggering, its grounds enchant. As lads we’d lose ourselves for weekends, weeks even, as we played tennis and shot fox and bumped through the box hedge maze.”

  “I’ll bet you ‘became a man’ there, too,” Pru said.

  “I did but that’s not the—”

  “Uh-huh. Now it all makes sense.”

  “Anyhow, you randy young thing, as I was saying. Every day was memorable, each night a dream. We held grand balls and watched orchestras play on the lawns. When the weather was nice we took boats onto the canals. We frolicked in the fountains as golden droplets of water sprinkled on us in the late summer sun.”

  “Uh. Wow.”

  Pru opened her eyes, then scooted up onto her elbows.

  “That doesn’t even sound real.”

  It surprised her that the man was not just gruff and vinegar.

  “My fondest memories happened there,” Win said. “And through it all threads of the duchess. Stories of her past. Theories about her present. At every dinner and party and hunt she was the topic of discussion.”

  “Yet you never met her,” Pru said. “How come? If you were there so frequently?”

  “Despite your uncharitable thoughts on the matter, there is a sizable age gap between the duchess and myself. Gladys Deacon left the palace in 1934 after Duke Nine died. I wasn’t even born until 1938. Please reserve your shock.”

  “Wow. No television then, even.”

  “Yes, we had to follow our wars the old-fashioned way,” he said. “Through radios and newspapers. As dark and backward as the times were, I didn’t lay eyes on Blenheim until 1945, eleven years after she disappeared.”

  “And they still talked about her.”

  “Obsessively. And among people far more notable than Gads and his family. Sir Winston Churchill, for one. Though he was technically part of the family, too.”

  “Ah, Winston. Mrs. Spencer’s favorite subject.”

  “Favorite something. Person to torment perhaps. ‘He couldn’t have done what Hitler did!’” Win trilled in a perfect Mrs. Spencer voice. “The scuttlebutt wasn’t limited to the Marlboroughs, either. Guests all parroted the same questions. What happened to the duchess? Was she alive? And what of her personal possessions? The duke and duchess were in the process of divorcing when he died, leaving her his forever wife. The family felt her things belonged to them, even though Nine cut her out of his will and left the estate to Ten. Estate. Albatross. What have you.”

  “Hmm,” Pru said, and settled back onto the bed. “It’s amazing how much damage one person can do.”

  She was half asleep now, the odds of making it back to her room slim. Could she sleep there? On the bed of an unfamiliar man? What would he think of her? More important, what would Pru think of herself?

  A few short months ago she was a student at Berkeley, living with roommates who introduced themselves as “lesbian-feminist organizers.” Pru dutifully protested the war, but waved the figurative hanky as she sent her fiancé off to fight. Then she left school to get married, a decision she could not reconcile with the desire to call herself a feminist. Alas, it was Charlie. And so love won.

  Pru was equal parts independent and traditional. She dreamt of office pumps and also a pregnant belly wrapped in a housecoat. Now, a continent away, among people whose families and traditions went back for centuries, Pru didn’t know who she was at all. Already she felt like someone else but couldn’t pinpoint in what ways.

  “Are you still with me, Miss Valentine?” Win asked in a half whisper as he stood above her.

  She nodded, the back of her head rubbing against his pillow.

  Pru was beginning to understand the man’s obsession. If she was slightly stunted in her forward progression, this chap was doubly so. Thirty-four years old. A man-boy who lived in a world of family stories and fish tales. He said it himself. What grown child wouldn’t want to meet his Peter Pan or Wendy? His Alice in Wonderland?

  “I get it now,” she said dreamily, her mind and good sense already slipping away. “Staying at Blenheim, stories of the duchess bleeding through the years. She grew to fabled proportions, a goddess to those who visited.”

  Pru fluttered her eyes open. Win remained hovering above, hands on hips, staring down with his puckered blue gaze.

  “Scoot over,” he said, nudging her leg with his foot. “You’re welcome to sleep here but make room for me, and pronto. I’m suddenly feeling quite off my tits and am liable to pass out right atop you.”

  “Mmm,” she replied, and inched to the right. “Can’t have that.”

  “How generous. Thank you for providing me a full three centimeters of space in my own bed.”

  Pru felt him slide in beside her. Her eyes popped open as she felt his fingers whisper ever-so-slightly against hers.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, sensing her body tighten against the bed.

  “Yes. Peachy.” Pru closed her eyes again and tried to steady her breath. “Win, who are you writing this book for? Do you really think anyone will care about a woman who’s been missing for thirty-five years? A woman who was
more legend than truth?”

  “How can you not find her fascinating?” he asked. “A champion spaniel breeder who is also a firearms enthusiast, a kidnap victim, a lover of great men, and the one person who could have prevented World War I?”

  “Yes, this person does sound fascinating. If she existed. If that’s her down the hall.”

  “What about a woman who keeps dead cats in the icebox and is famous for running naked through the town center? If you don’t find this compelling may I direct you to more plebeian entertainment? An episode of the American comedy Sanford and Son, for instance.”

  “Well,” Pru said, breath finally at peace in her chest. “Perhaps you have a point.”

  Win beamed in return, though Pru’s eyes were closed and she could not see him.

  A point? He had a point? It was a very rare thing for anyone to say about Win Seton. A very rare thing indeed.

  “Do you really think Mrs. Spencer is the missing duchess?” Pru asked before finally nodding off.

  “Yes, of course. Otherwise, what am I doing here?”

  “But what proof do you have other than a hunch and a handful of rumors?”

  “I have photos. And documents. And we have her name.”

  “Whose name? Gladys Deacon’s? That’s not exactly top secret information.”

  “I’m referring to Mrs. Spencer, your oft-naked employer. You see, I’ve not told you Gads’s surname.”

  “It’s not Marlborough?”

  “No. It’s Spencer. Well, Spencer-Churchill to be specific. And isn’t sloughing off the Churchill the very thing our dear friend would do? Winston was no Hitler, after all.”

  Thirty-eight

  GD: He was the worst. The absolute worst.

  WS: I’m not sure why you have such prejudices against Churchill.

  GD: Because he was not a great man! And everyone erroneously thought he was. Which only served to puff him up.

  WS: But how well did you know him?

  GD: I knew him well enough. He used to come to that place where we were.

  WS: Blenheim, you mean?

  GD: He liked to lay down the law! No compassion. The man was incapable of love. He was in love with his own image—his reflection in the mirror. Coon thought he was tiring, too.