Free The Duchesss Tattoo by Daisy Goodwin Page B

am quite the daughter-in-law she hoped for. She isn’t very fond of Americans. I mean she doesn’t actually say so, but then she doesn’t have to; if she thinks I am being too vulgar and American, she does this thing with her nose—it actually moves independently of her face. I’ve never seen anything like it. I guess it goes with being an aristocrat, like strawberry leaves.” She giggled, and her hand flew to her mouth.
    â€œAnyway, when I saw the snake, I knew I had to have one. I may be American, but I know how to be fashionable.” She reached into her reticule and took out a morocco leather box tooled in gold. She pressed the catch, and the lid sprang open to reveal a bracelet quite dense with diamonds.
    â€œI brought this with me so that you could make sure that the tattoo fits under it exactly. It comes from Asprey’s. When I went in there and told them I was looking a diamond bracelet about an inch thick, they knew exactly what I was looking for. They had three of them on a special tray.”
    Yes, thought Palmer, they would.
    â€œI want it done now because we are going to stay at Ventnor next week and the Prince of Wales will be there. I haven’t met him yet, and I do so want to make a good impression. I hear he only likes fashionable women, so I thought I should get the very latest thing.”
    Palmer looked down at the diamonds on the bed of blue velvet and at his visitor’s long white fingers. He felt the hairs on his arm prickle. Could this girl really be unaware of what she was asking him to do? It seemed hardly possible that someone moving as she did in high society could be oblivious to the significance of the snake tattoo. But perhaps he was being fooled by her youth and faux naïveté perhaps she knew very well. He thought of the three wrists he had inked with the ouroboros in jade green at thirty guineas each. Wrists that belonged to some of the most experienced women in London, including the American Duchess’s own mother-in-law. It was difficult to credit that this radiant young woman was part of that particular club. He found himself shaking his head almost without realizing it.
    â€œForgive me if I am being impertinent, Your Grace.” The Duchess blinked as she registered that Palmer had recognized her. “But does your husband know that you are here?”
    The Duchess laughed. “Of course not; that would spoil the surprise. Ivo thinks that I have no idea how English society works. He calls me his little savage, as if I grew up in a teepee with feathers in my hair instead of in the biggest home on Fifth Avenue. That’s why I want to do this, I want to show him that I don’t need him to tell me every single thing—that I am quite capable of being as smart as any of them.” Her voice grew a shade defiant during this speech, and Palmer realized that the Duchess was not finding it altogether easy to take the place in society that her wealth, beauty and position should entitle her to.
    â€œAll these women like my mother-in-law—” the Duchess went on— “they’re like a club with their own rules. They sneer at you all the time for getting things wrong, but no one will tell you what the rules are. The men aren’t so bad, but it is the women who matter.”
    Palmer looked at her slender white wrist with longing. It would be a rare pleasure, he thought, to add the finishing touch to such perfection. Really, he would almost pay to work on such a canvas, but he knew his duty.
    â€œI am very sorry, Your Grace, but I am afraid that I simply don’t have the time at the moment to undertake such a commission. The Berlin Exhibition is coming up, and I have a major work to complete before them.” This much, at least, was true.
    The Duchess shook her head in disbelief. “But Duchess Fanny told me it wouldn’t take more an hour to do it. Surely you could spare an hour?” She gave him a