“The butler?” LaRue whispered.
Giles did not answer, but pulled LaRue from the garden. They decamped to their original post across the street.
“It is extraordinary,” Giles said. “There is nothing in that house. He surely does not receive callers, there would be no place to sit. He cannot belong to a club, nobody would have him. Where does he meet people?”
“Does he meet people?” LaRue said.
“There is a book in there. I suspect it is his appointment book.”
“That is how he meets people?”
“I do not know, but I want that book.”
“Tout simplement fantastique,” LaRue said. “The day becomes more and more wonderful. Now we will be housebreakers for a book. Why did I leave France?”
“We will not break in,” Giles said. “You will pay that charwoman to hand it over.”
“Pay with what!” LaRue cried.
“I’ll sell some of my coats,” Giles said. He had no idea what the going rate was for a charwoman to steal possessions, but he would soon find it out. He was certain a book of appointments would reveal something underhanded about Sir John Kullehamnd.
*
Kitty sat withher mother and Frederick in the drawing room after breakfast. It was not the usual place to find Frederick, most days he would be on his horse already, gone off to nobody knew where. This day, however, they awaited a particular delivery.
It was the day of Lady Blakely’s masque, an event taking place every year that both delighted and terrorized her guests. The lady wielded a terrific sense of wit and expressed that wit with a gift—all of her guests were expected to wear the mask that Lady Blakely had specially designed for them.
One could hardly avoid the invitation—were one to stay away, the talk would fly round about what sort of mask it might have been that the lord or lady dared not don. It would not be a day before the details were known everywhere. Lady Penderton said it was far better to brazen it out and take the laughter that might come one’s way than sit home in a fit of temper.
Of course, Kitty thought her mother would say so, as she had always been treated very kindly by Lady Blakely’s hands. As for this morning, carriages and footmen had set off from Lady Blakely’s house in every direction and half of London sat in their drawing rooms, nervously waiting to discover what would be delivered to their doors.
What the night was comprised of had already been revealed in the initial invitation. Some years, it was only a dinner and fewer people were invited. Other years, if Lady Blakeley were feeling particularly energetic on the mask-making side of things, it would be a ball. This was to be a ball and Kitty was grateful for it. More people meant she would just be one among many, even if her mask turned out to be ghastly.
Kitty felt a little tremulous in the waiting. She and Lady Penderton had called on Lady Blakely weeks ago and she’d found the woman exceedingly kind. She’d even been encouraged to speak about her discoveries relating to Cornish eyebright, though later she wondered if she’d bored the lady.
“Oh, mama,” Kitty said, breaking the silence, “what if Lady Blakely masks me as a bore? I should have tried to be more amusing when we called on her. I know everybody cannot be as interested in eyebright as I am.”
“So true,” Frederick said.
Lady Penderton laid down her sewing. “Kitty, Lady Blakely is a kind and intelligent woman. Had you worked to be more amusing, she would have seen there was something false in it. As you presented yourself as you are, I think you have nothing to fear.”
“Good God,” Frederick said, dropping his newspaper. “I was seated next to Lady Blakeley at a dinner last week and Ididwork to be amusing. I hope I am not punished for it. Jost says that if she jokes about him not being terribly talkative with ladies he will not come.”
“And so forever cement himself with the reputation,” Lady Penderton said. “Though I do not happen to think Lady Blakely would be so cruel to one so young.”
The trio fell into silence once more. Kitty pretended to read, but for once she could not lose herself in a book. Lady Blakeley’s masque was only one thing on her mind. She could not dismiss Sir John’s behavior from her thoughts.
Despite wishing to like him, despite feeling sheshouldlike him, she was becoming more and more convinced that, in fact, she did not like him. She had not at all liked the way he spoke to her at Mrs. Herschel’s salon. Their other conversations had made her feel he viewed her as his intellectual equal.Thatconversation, though. There had been so much condescension in it. Scolding, almost. As if she had been a child and did not know her own good.
It was as if a curtain were pulled back and his real temperament revealed. He did not care to be questioned or crossed. In truth, he’d seemed surprised that she would pursue an avenue of inquiry that he had already informed her was pointless. He might have even seemed a little angry over it—as if she defied him and had no right to do it.
Is that what life would be like with a person such as Sir John? Would she be free to speculate on intellectual notions, but only if they aligned with her husband’s opinions? His condescension had been palpable, and that had been in a drawing room with a lady only recently met. What stance might he take with a wife? Rather stronger, she feared. It felt a heavy yoke she did not care to wear.
As she mulled it over, Kitty began to think that she must not trade everything away for intellectual stimulation. Yes, it would be a grand thing to discuss the findings of the day over dinner. But she must remain her own independent person. She would not be treated like a child and ordered about. Her father did not treat her mother so. Kitty Dell would need respect, and she would need to like the person more than she liked Sir John.
Along with those ideas, Kitty could not quite push away the idea of Lord Grayson. Dashing, charming, and, as her mother said, fun. She doubted very much if Lord Grayson would be bothered if she held a differing opinion. He certainly had never spoken to her as father to a daughter. But he was also dangerous, or so it seemed. Danger or no, it was the lord who made her heart beat faster. Had he been a more reliable choice, she could not say where her feelings might have led her.
Where was the man in the middle of those two? An intelligent, reliable man who was just a little bit dashing and fun? She had not met that man yet. She could only hope that she might.
