Though who would have felt it necessary to hire a boy to throw the thing through a window? That was not just amusement, there was real condemnation there. Further, her name was not even on the drawing. Were both circumstances so well known, and so quickly, that whoever had hired the boy had instantly perceived who the drawing represented?
Sybil wiped her eyes. “It is so unfair!” she said.
“Indeed it is,” Cassandra said. “Though I do not like to see you upset by it. You ought to go home, I know you attend the Blakeleys’ ball this evening and you will not want red eyes, particularly not with a mask on—you would appear a frightful specter.”
“Oh no,” Sybil said, her voice resolute. “I shall not go anywhere until your aunt arrives. I will not have you sit alone waiting for her. Though, I think we’d best move away from the window. Just in case another boy comes along.”
The thought of a second broken window sent a shiver down Cassandra’s spine and they moved with all haste to the other side of the room.
“You were to go to the Blakeleys’ tonight as well,” Sybil said. “Shall you attend?”
“I will do as my aunt suggests,” Cassandra said. “I very much hope she suggests we stay home, as I am in no mood for levity or for finding myself stared at. I can have no idea how many people have seen a copy of that print.”
“If you do go,” Sybil said, “I shall be right by your side. Let the starers note it all they like. I rather think you should go, my mama says Lady Blakeley takes a deal of time choosing the right mask for each person. I am rather terrified to see what arrives today but whatever it is, I will put it on and remain close by you.”
Cassandra smiled at her friend, much cheered to find her such a stalwart ally. Sybil might not gallop off without a groom or shoot birds, but she was as steady as any soldier. As for the mask, Lady Marksworth had told her of Lady Blakeley’s unusual way of going on. It was not a full-dress mask and those attending did not choose their own. Two masks of some sort would arrive for herself and her aunt before the day was through.
Cassandra had looked forward to the idea, but now she would just as soon forgo donning a mask of cheerfulness or anything Lady Blakeley might dream up.
*
It was notmore than a half hour before Jimmy returned with Lady Marksworth. He’d somehow got her out of the house and then informed her of events as they made their way home, no doubt jogging alongside her window.
Cassandra’s aunt blew into the room like a north wind, took in the cloth covering the window and her niece sitting on the far side of the room with Sybil.
“Cassandra, are you quite all right?”
“I am unhurt,” Cassandra said. To claim being quite all right felt too much to own.
“And dear Lady Sybil,” Lady Marksworth said, “how good of you to stay with her. You must have been frightened out of your wits.”
Sybil rose and said, “Not terribly so and Cassandra was terrifically brave. In any case, as my father always says, the Hayworths stand their ground.”
Sybil curtsied and took her leave amidst Lady Marksworth’s thanks and Cassandra’s grateful looks. Her aunt came and sat beside Cassandra. She picked up the print and stared at it.
“You will only understand part of it, I think,” Cassandra said. “The three gentlemen are Lords Hampton, Lockwood and Ashworth.”
“I see,” Lady Marksworth said. “So the gossipmongers would make something of three gentlemen escorting a lady home. Entirely ridiculous.”
“The gun, though,” Cassandra said, determined that her aunt should understand it all. “That is my fault. At the Bergram’s ball, Lord Hampton said something provoking and somehow I carelessly mentioned I’d been in the habit of shooting birds.”
Lady Marksworth’s forehead wrinkled. “Why should you invent such a bizarre account of yourself?”
“It was not an invention,” Cassandra said.
“Not an invention? Do you mean to say? No, certainly your father would not… he would not have allowed his daughter. Good Lord. He did.”
“He did,” Cassandra confirmed. “I ought not to have mentioned it and regretted it as soon as I said it.”
Lady Marksworth appeared pensive. “Well, a girl with a shotgun is strange, there’s no getting round it. Though I have heard that Lady Rentworth has been known to shoot bird.”
Cassandra was cheered by that idea. “So it is not entirely unknown,” she said.
“Perhaps not. But the reason I have heard of it is because people speak of it and Lady Rentworth is a middle-aged spinster who has always been known as a great eccentric.”
“And I am young and here for my first season,” Cassandra said quietly.
“Just so,” Lady Marksworth said.
