Lady Heathway watched with obvious trepidation as Grace made her way to the pianoforte and sat down on the bench. She chose a Haydn sonata that was a favorite and that she could play without needing the sheet music.
As the sonata unfolded, its formal structure of notes wafting through the drawing room, Grace could almost feel Lady Heathway’s relief floating along with it.
She could not say she looked forward to venturing out on this night, but she reminded herself of a few salient facts. First,shewas the one who had caused the trouble, and second, Lady Heathway had spent a significant amount of time and money on the hopes that she could one day sit in a music room with her contemporaries and bask in the admiring glances directed at her protégé.
As her fingers flew across the keys, Grace was determined that she would not let the lady down.
*
Mr. Robert Jacobs,eldest son of a baron named Lord Grimsbury, paced his library as he awaited his friends. Something was happening, but he was not certain what it was.
Three years ago, he had first arrived to London, determined to take the town by storm. He knew he did not arrive with as lofty a title as some others, but he did have a title. Or would have one of these days. He would be a baron. He would also have a lot of money.
His father, the current baron, had droned on and on about how he was to comport himself through the season. He was to be circumspect and give all due respect and deference to those who outranked him.
It had been absurd. Nearly everybody outranked him. What was he to do? Bow and scrape at every turn?
No, he’d had a better idea. He’d always been known as the jokester amongst his friends, and so he would become a noted wit. How else to rise to the top without a lofty title to carry you there? Now, on his third season, he’d accomplished it. So many of his bon mots were repeated widely. So many of his nicknames stuck.Lady Naysay, Lord Short Pockets, Miss Woebegone. Only Alvanley and Brummel could claim a similar success and Brummel was sure to disappear into oblivion sometime soon for having quarreled with the regent.
His latest triumph had fallen into his lap—The Sprinter. The name was already being circulated.
Step one of his long-term plan had unfolded flawlessly. Step two, which he had not been all that eager to get to, was to make a brilliant match. Easily enough done, now that he had made a name for himself. He was invited everywhere and need only choose.
But today, something odd happened. First, a note from Lady Cadmium apologizing profusely but her nephew had unexpectedly arrived from the continent and must take his place at dinner on the morrow. Then, a note from Lady Tredwell explaining that she’d overestimated the size of her ballroom and had been forced to cut her list for the masque.
The first note had only produced irritation. After all, there was only one eligible lady set to attend, a certain Lady Mary, and he supposed he would not be so lucky as to be placed beside her at dinner. He’d probably only escaped being bored by Lady Featherstone and her blathering on about Ryland’s criminal society or Lady Jersey yakking on like a parrot. Or worse, Lady Easton and her pronouncements about what was right and what was not—that lady had the sense of humor of a rock.
The second note he’d received, though, had produced more than irritation. It had produced incredulity. What lady overestimated the size of her own ballroom? What ball was not overcrowded as a general thing? Lady Tredwell hosted a masque every single year—now suddenly she did not know how many people she was in the habit of inviting?
It could not be true!
His butler opened the door and led in his friends, Grubbs and Lester.
“What’s this?” Grubbs said. “Why am I dragged out of bed at two o’clock in the afternoon?”
“I asked the very same thing,” Lester said. “I wasn’t abed, but I would have wondered over it if I had been. Deuced early, old fellow.”
Jacobs ignored their complaints, as did his butler. The man ever so slightly raised his brows and departed the room. Jacobs well understood that Mr. Crumley viewed himself far superior to Grubbs and Lester. He was sometimes afraid that Crumley viewed himself superior tohim.
After the door closed, he said, “Have either of you been disinvited to Lady Tredwell’s masque?”
Grubbs and Lester looked at one another and shrugged. “Not that I know of,” Grubbs said.
“I’d remember if I had, and I don’t remember, so I haven’t,” Lester said, seeming satisfied with his thread of logic.
“Well, I have,” Jacobs said, throwing the note on his desk.
“Good God, what did you do to the old matron?” Grubbs asked.
“Nothing,” Jacobs said. “That’s the problem, I did nothing to Lady Tredwell. Something is afoot.”
Grubbs rubbed his chin as if there were an answer there. Lester bent over and looked at his feet, presumably at the mention ofafoot.
Jacobs thought, and not for the first time, if he’d been able to find more intelligent friends, he would have done so long ago. But here he was. He’d have to unravel this mystery by himself.
“I’m going to pretend I never got the note,” Jacobs said, the idea just coming to him. “I’ll wear a very good mask so she won’t recognize me, but if she does, I’ll pretend I don’t know what she’s talking about.”
“There you go, problem solved,” Grubb said.
