“Ah yes! Well done, Lady Helena. They are, indeed, Little owls. Do pardon my manners, duckies. Allow me to formally introduce our newest residents at the animal orphanage, Spike and George. The two were found trapped in a train car, presumably after flying inside, seeking shelter. The length of their unfortunate incarceration isn’t certain, but it’s assumed the poor dears suffered from malnutrition and exposure to hazardous temperatures, resulting in significant emotional and cerebral trauma. As a result, they’re just not”—Wincing, Mumsie waved a gloved hand in front of Spike’s round, unblinking eyes—“all there.”
Margaret exchanged an amused look with Helena as she handed off more books, doing her best to keep the queue moving, despite the continued chatter of the night’s hostesses.
“Oh, Heidi, what a harrowing tale!” Lady Darrowby exclaimed. “Spike and George are most fortunate to have been entrusted to your care.”
“As fortunate as our foundling children will be to learn from the books you’re collecting tonight. It’s such a boon, Alfreda! The little ones will be so excited. Have I told you of my new initiative? I’m calling itReading for a Good Claws. The children who’ve struggled to read will be encouraged to cheer up the animals in our infirmary by reading aloud to them. It’s already proven quite successful. Little Robin, who’s said nary a word since we rescued him, spent nearly an hour yesterday reading to a melancholic donkey who’d suffered a tail amputation.”
Before Margaret could inquire after the donkey’s welfare, Lady Darrowby and Mumsie sauntered away arm in arm, twittering about the arrival of the surprise guest of honor ... whoever that might be. It seemed she’d be continuing her task without their diverting commentary in her peripheries. Waving forward the next couple in the ever-lengthening queue,Margaret received their books and directed them to follow the string quartet’s summons into the ballroom. Two by two, eager guests stopped by the receiving table before parading into the adjacent room with its glittering chandeliers and wallpaper agleam with silver leaf.
An hour passed in this manner, the queue finally beginning to dwindle when Helena’s parents stepped to the front of the line, exuding their customary air of starched formality and expensive perfume.Oh dear, awkward exchange incoming.Margaret widened her smile to its full breadth, hoping to distract from her friend’s suddenly pinched lips. “Lord and Lady Belgrave, how lovely to see you. Three volumes each? How generous! I’m sure the children will appreciate—” she glanced at the gilded spines—“this six-volume set ofThe Kings and Queens of England: A Comprehensive and Chronological Record Spanning from the Normans to thePresent Day.”
Helena snorted derisively. “Oh, goody.”
“Ahem!” Shoving the books into Helena’s chest, Margaret extracted an oomph from her friend she prayed rendered her speechless. “A very good selection, indeed. Thank you, Lord and Lady Belgrave.”
Lord Belgrave’s rigid nod failed to crease his high white collar. In a contrasting show of warmth, Lady Belgrave produced a genial sniff. “But of course, Lady Margaret. The marquess and marchioness of Marlow are in good health, I trust?”
How Mama loathed Lady Belgrave’s manner of addressing them by their titles and their titles alone. Margaret forced her taut smile not to falter. “My parents are well, indeed, as you may see for yourself. They’re already in the ballroom, no doubt making quite merry with the waltz.”
Signaling his wish to depart, Lord Belgrave offered his wife his arm. Lady Belgrave accepted, bidding Margaret another decorous sniff as the pair hastened into the ballroom without so much as a hint of recognition directed at their only daughter.
Margaret squeezed Helena’s hand, now white-knuckled around her pencil. One of these days perhaps Helena would finally confide in her about the obvious frigidity between her and her parents. Explain what had created the rift so wide and wound so deep, acknowledging the void had become as impossible as traversing it. “Are you—”
“Lady Margaret.” Not raising her gaze, Helena gestured to the line with a nod. “The next person is in need of assistance.”
When Helena erected that wall of formality, that was Margaret’s cue not to press. She turned her attention to the next person, who as it turned out, was the final person remaining in queue. The only other person, aside from D.O.G.S. members, left in the parlor. A gentleman, presumably, judging by the tailcoat sleeves wrapped around the veritable tower of books obscuring his face. A tower that was beginning to lean eerily like the one in Pisa Margaret’s parents had taken her to see as a child. “The table is just before you, sir. Take one more step forward and set it down. I’ll provide counterbalance to prevent total collapse.”
As the man neared the table, lowering the books, Margaret steadied the stack with a hand until it came to rest on the table. “Brilliantly done, sir! That was most—”
“Miss Knight?”
Margaret froze. What on earth was Mr. Noble doing in the Periwinkle Parlor? And if he was here, did that mean Mr. Harrison was—her heart stalled—Lady Darrowby’s surprise guest of honor? That must be why their names hadn’t been on the official guest list. Why no one from D.O.G.S. had thought anything of her attending the ball tonight as—
“Or should I call youLadyMargaret?”
Herself.Margaret gulped, mouth suddenly arid.
Mr. Noble stared at her quizzically, and his voice jumped an octave. “Are you actually the daughter of a marquess and marchioness?”
Helena’s pencil snapped, and the activity at the end of the table came to an abrupt halt. Every member of the D.O.G.S. fixed their gazes on Margaret and held their breath ... waiting for her first case to explode before their eyes like an overheated steam engine.
Chapter
17
When a steam engine was primed to explode, there was only one logical recourse for most people—run like mad. However, along with not being like other girls in high society, Margaret was also not like most people in general. She, therefore, speedily ran through a flash of mental calculations and proceeded to follow through with the only logical resource at her disposal—deployment of her Sprightly Sprocket.
Margaret pressed a button concealed as an upholstery tack on her wheelchair, and the giant spring concealed within the base sprung, catapulting her and her chair over the table of books and Mr. Noble in a single leap. Quite as expected. While in the air, she pressed the button again, thus retracting the spring to prevent further bouncing. Her landing was abrupt but silent and smooth—quite as expected—thanks to the new shock absorbers she’d installed last autumn.
On the ground once more, Margaret pressed a second button that produced the hidden directional lever and, graspingit tightly, hit the brass to the brocade. Her wheelchair whisked across the mostly empty Periwinkle Parlor and out the northern exit. Careening on one wheel, she veered down a familiar corridor and made for the universally acknowledged haven for bluestocking spinsters in distress.
The library.
When Margaret was ensconced in the safety and silence of a room lined with bookcases, she slowed her frenzied flight, tucking herself betwixt a pair of leather wingback chairs that faced a plush toile divan and proceeded to hide. A proceeding that involved shrinking into her chair and snatching up the nearest available tome. The title didn’t matter, so long as said tome’s size allowed her to bury her entire face into the shelter of its pages. Thus concealed, she endeavored to calm her rather stunned nervous system by inhaling the comforting aroma of old books, a balm that could neither be adequately named nor replicated.
Laying the acquired book upon her brow as though it were a medicinal compress, Margaret groaned. Great gadgets, what had she just done? She’d well and properly panicked, that’s what, and what’s more, she’d disgraced the Daughters of Genius Society. Her complete ineptitude was an embarrassment. None of the other lady inspectors would’ve panicked so ... so ... spectacularly. Oh, what must Professor Quimby think of her? Surely, she was ruing her decision to assign a case to such a—
“Maggie?” Helena’s whisper, softened with concern and compassion, was followed by the shushing of silken slippers upon the carpet and the creak of the wingback chair to her right. “Oh, Maggie ... it wasn’t so bad, truly. All the other guests were occupied in the ballroom, so only Mr. Noble witnessed you fleeing like a frightened March hare.”
