Georgiana pressed her lips together as Lady Annabelle opened the paper and appeared to read it. She supposed perusing a valet’s laundry list of shirts and cravatswasone thing to do to occupy oneself if one did not dance at a ball.
She was beginning to wonder why she had ever any enmity toward the lady. There really was nobody more eccentric and amusing.
Even more amusing, Marcus returned to the ballroom and looked around the floor. At the same time, Lady Annabelle had folded the paper and held it behind her back.
The poor valet was looking everywhere for his notes and for some reason, Lady Annabelle had decided to hide it from him. She really was delightfully odd.
As they moved through the dance, Mr. Vance distracted Georgiana with all sorts of wit and pleasantries in his usual easygoing style. Now the dance had concluded and it was mercifully time for supper.
So far, she had done well. All of Lady Mendleton’s particular friends had been spoken to and even Lady Heathway had complimented her on her dress. They had all assured Lady Mendleton of the success of the ball.
Georgiana was doing her duty and getting through the ball minute by minute. The main thing was to please Lady Mendleton and that she had done so far. It would not be too long now before she was blissfully alone in her bed and could give vent to the feelings she had kept under wraps all evening.
As she and Mr. Vance made their way toward the doors, Lady Annabelle hurried to her side and said, “Mr. Vance, you will not mind if Miss Wilcox escorts me into the ladies’ retiring room for a moment?”
Mr. Vance, naturally, had no recourse but to claim cheerfully that he did not mind in the least. Georgiana was both perplexed and diverted. Were they to have another conversation about Mr. Pottsgrove? Or were they to review the valet’s list she had pilfered and discuss the various shirts to be laundered? Or was it some other delightful idea that had occurred to the lady? Perhaps she was considering a second letter to Mr. Pottsgrove in case he did not comprehend the first?
Lady Annabelle hurried her to the doors leading into the retiring room. The place was not as elaborate as Lady Featherstone’s, but it was spacious and comfortable all the same.
They sat down on a sofa together and Lady Annabelle said quietly. “I have been a snooper. Mr. Pottsgrove thinks my snooping very charming and says I might snoop all I like, but I think others are sometimes not as approving.”
Georgiana nodded, having been a snooper herself in the not so distant past and not at all approving of herself for it.
“I don’t usually find anything interesting, and well, I would not say this is interesting as much as it is…I think it a very odd letter for a servant to have! I am sure it is very odd.”
Lady Annabelle handed over the paper that Marcus had dropped.
Georgiana unfolded it. She could not be certain what it might contain, but was rather afraid it was some missive from a lady-love that she’d really rather not know anything about.
Marcus—
The fool has agreed to meet me inside the Grosvenor Gate at midnight, see that he’s on his horse in good time. If by chance Ryland turns up at the ball, send me immediate word. Langley thinks he’s meeting Ryland and I will call this off if they encounter one another prior. There has been one minor slip up—Langley spotted me at the club though I claimed an illness to his mother to account for my absence. Keep your ears open on that front. He must not suspect and think to come armed. The crown may well depend upon the outcome of this night—we shall not allow those idiot Hanovers to prevail a minute longer than they already have. My destiny is at hand.
Asturt
Georgiana read through it again as Lady Annabelle chattered on. “You see what I say about odd. Midnight meetings and the crown and such. Why should Lord Langley’s valet have a letter like that from Lord Asturt? What does Lord Asturt mean by it?”
What indeed did Lord Asturt mean by it? Of course, he and Marcus were acquainted, Lord Asturt had recommended the valet to Lord Langley. But that did not account for the contents of this letter.
As she read it over and over, she searched for meaning. She began to reflect on everything Lord Asturt had ever said to her. As she did so, the various threads began to come together. The letter was the warp and Lord Asturt’s words were the weft—they weaved themselves into a whole cloth.
Lord Asturt had sent Marcus into Lord Langley’s employ quite deliberately. They were in some sort of plot together and the lord wished Marcus to be in this house in particular because…
Because of Lord Langley’s work for the queen. Lord Asturt always had questions about Lord Langley and she knew from Jenny that Marcus did the same below stairs. Marcus was excessively interested in the king’s condition. Lord Asturt had several times hinted that the king’s madness was a family condition, passed down through the generations.
Georgiana sat back, the letter fluttering to the floor. That day in the library, when she suspected Marcus was snooping and she had snooped herself. He had been spying for Lord Asturt. Then, did they not meet in the park that one morning and claim it happenstance?
The park! Lord Asturt had claimed that Marcus had told him of the latest report on the king from having read it in the newspaper. But he could not have. It was too early in the day and he had no paper with him. Perry took charge of all the papers that were delivered to the house and took them straight in to Lord Langley in the library.
And what about Lady Featherstone’s ball? Lord Asturt had startled her with what had sounded close to treason. He said if the public knew about the inherited nature of the king’s madness, the Hanovers would be finished.
Then at Lady Tredwell’s masque, he’d talked of a restoration of the Stuarts. When she’d joked about the Stuart pretenders, he’d said they never were pretenders. He’d said a true heir was alive, a Count somebody or other.
And then both Lady Mendleton and Lord Gresham only recalling the lord of the Irish estate asAstur.Lord Gresham even thought the lord was very old and the heir was still a child. She had assumed them both mistaken, but what if they’d both been right? What if there were no Lord Asturt? Only an old man named Astur? But then, if Lord Asturt had taken on another’s identity, why add thetto the end of the name?
Astur. Asturt.
Almost sounding as if she were far away, Georgiana heard Lady Annabelle say, “Are you all right, Miss Wilcox?”
