She leaned closer. “There you are. You went somewhere else for a moment.”
He forcibly relaxed the tense muscles of his shoulders and arms. Then a word came to him, like a bolt of lightning. “Hatter!” He slapped his palm on the table, making his cutlery shake. “I am seeking a hatter. Do you have a recommendation?”
“Well done,” Winifred said. “Although I would suggest you do not strike the table next time. Mrs. Berry was so alarmed by your outburst that she spread a rumor across thetonthat you imbibed too much wine and behaved inappropriately.”
He wiped sweat from his forehead. The practice session Winifred had laid out had seemed laughable, but this was the fourth time he’d failed to get through the dinner with the Berry family, which included the gossipmonger Mrs. Berry (barley topped with a straw hat), her husband, Mr. Berry (flour lashed together with twine), and the soft-spoken Miss Berry (three pumpkins stacked in a pyramid, the topmostdraped with a diamond necklace). The problem was the fictional Mr. Berry was nearly deaf, requiring Marcus to speak loudly for the man to hear, but Miss Berry startled at the slightest sound.
His heart still pounded from the attack, but at least he’d forced his way out of it. A small accomplishment, but one worth celebrating.
“Shall we try again?” Winifred asked.
He put his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. “I do not remember dinner parties being so wretched.” Possibly because even before his involuntary confinement, he’d avoided socializing in favor of more scandalous events, much like Cordon. There had been a time when he’d taken his duties as a lord seriously, but that had been long ago.
Winifred sighed. “They usually aren’t, but the entire purpose of this is to force you to manage your nerves.” The screech of her chair being pushed back made him look up. She was adjusting Mr. Berry’s body, which had slid to the point of nearly falling off his chair.
Marcus rubbed his handkerchief across the back of his neck, then balled it up and shoved it in his pocket. “You have succeeded. Where did you get the idea for this scenario, anyway?”
She paused in the motion of tilting Mrs. Berry’s hat. “My parents invited a family very similar to the Berrys to dine with us. It was a miserable night. I had to hold my tongue a dozen times, and even then there were rumors spread the next day that I stormed off before the meal was complete.” She chuckled. “It wasn’t true, of course. I simply left the table the moment it was socially acceptable to do so.”
He could imagine what that must have been like, with a woman as proper as the Mrs. Berry character. It had been years since he’d attended a social event. As much as he longed for a cure for his affliction, he was becoming increasingly aware that a life spent in solitude was not one worth living.
Winifred returned to her seat and picked up her wineglass by the stem. That was his signal that the scenario wasbeginning again.
“Mr. and Mrs. Berry enter with their daughter,” Winifred said.
The room fell silent.
Winifred raised her voice. “Isaid, Mr. and—”
The footmen Winifred had roped into assisting them swung the doors open.
After several seconds, Marcus realized Winifred was watching and hurriedly stood. For the third attempt in a row, he’d nearly missed his cue. He walked to the front of the table and bowed. “Welcome, Mr. and Mrs. Berry.”
“Why, thank you, my lord,” Winifred said, in a comically deep voice. It had made him burst into laughter the first time he’d heard it. The woman was clever, humorous, and intelligent. He could hardly believe she cared enough to conjure up situations designed to help him.
He greeted the young Miss Berry and joined his guests at the table, all without earning a hiss from Winifred that would indicate he’d committed a social gaffe. The success criteria of this dinner party was to finish the night without embarrassing himself badly enough that Winifred judged the stuffy Mrs. Berry character would spread rumors the following evening. But if he focused his attention too much on charming her, then her jealous, hot-headed husband would challenge him to a duel.
It was, quite honestly, exhausting.
“This wine is atrocious,” Winifred said as Mrs. Berry.
The first time Marcus had been given that prompt, he’d responded by defending his choice, but that route had inevitably led to failure. According to Winifred, Mrs. Berry’s insults were intended to rattle him. Therefore, the correct response was to grin and not say or do anything that she could use against him.
“I will summon my butler to bring another,” he said.
The rest of the dinner party played out as he expected, with Winifred only throwing in a few changes, as she did with each repetition,so as not to let him grow too comfortable. In this round, Mr. Berry loudly complained about the small portions and Miss Berry dropped her fan. For the former, Marcus instructed his butler to provide additional servings. For the latter, he was spared from failure when he reached down to grab the “fan” by Winifred, making a soft sound in the back of her throat. He quickly straightened and said, instead, “A footman notices the fan and fetches it for Miss Berry.”
Winifred released a rush of air. “That was close.”
Taking her words as a sign that the scenario was over, he slumped. “What would have happened if I had retrieved it?”
Winifred grinned. “Miss Berry would have accepted it and the moment your fingers brushed hers, she would have dropped in a faint.”
He groaned. “I do not remember young ladies being so fragile.”
Winifred fluffed her skirts. “Shall we go again?”
He wanted to sayyes, but his backside was growing sore from sitting, there was a dull throb in his head, and he’d lost sensation in his fingers and toes.
