Lady Viola was overheard to say something about glue. Had he not just fetched glue for Lady Juliet the day before? She was to make a collage of her poems, though Tattleton had never heard of such a thing and had yet to see evidence of it.
Tattleton had told Charlie to forget what he’d seen.
If onlyhecould forget it, too. Cutting hair from a dog sounded like some sort of witchcraft. Where were they taking the hair now? What else was in the bag? Fingernail clippings? Eye of newt? On a Sunday!
His boyhood in Penrith, not far from the stone monoliths of Long Meg and Her Daughters, came rushing back to him. Everybody had been warned never to try to count the monoliths twice. If the same number were arrived at both times, then either Long Meg would come back to life and kill them all, or something evil would happen to the ill-advised counter.
Had not Randall Blade been dared to do it? Had he not been stupid enough to do it? And then, what? Three months later he’d fallen under a cart’s wheel and broke his leg. He’d walked with a limp forever after.
Over the years, Tattleton had convinced himself that it had been a coincidence. And then refused to look too closely at the fact that he did not believe in coincidences.
What else could taking a dog’s hair be for, if not some sort of spell?
Should he go to the earl?
But then, what would he say? ‘My Lord, I am afraid your daughters have taken to dabbling in witchcraft.’ He would sound preposterous and be on his way to Bedlam shortly after.
Those wretched dogs. All those dogs! Dog hair in a paper sack would not have left the house had there been no dog in the house.
As it was, there were nine of them. One of them had just had a haircut and eight of them were on the move!
Oh, they were wobbly and falling down and not getting far, but that would not last. They’d get better and faster and then what?
Tattleton shut his eyes. There was nothing he could do about any of it but walk carefully along the cliff’s edge and wait for the earth to crumble beneath his feet.
Hopefully, he would crash land on a ledge of some sort and live to tell the tale.
*
The Bennington’s carriagehad set off at two o’clock in the afternoon. Both the earl and Darden had shuddered when they were told that the purpose was to discuss personal ladies’ matters and had inquired no further.
As Conbatten’s house on Grosvenor Square was too close by to give them sufficient time to prepare Miss Mayton to be Archibald, the lovelorn baron’s second, they’d directed Sandren to drive to Piccadilly and then circle back around to the square. This would also ensure that they approached the square in the right direction and their father’s crest would not be noted.
Sandren had not seemed to understand the point of it all, especially not when he was apprised of this “goose chase” they were supposed to be on, but he did not refuse either.
They had since closed the curtains on the windows and helped Miss Mayton into her clothes. It had been no great matter to do—though it was a tight fit, they’d wrangled her into a waistcoat and coat right over her dress and then covered her dress’ neckline with a neckcloth.
“The knot in the cloth is perhaps not the most studied, but on the whole, the clothes look very good,” Rosalind said. “Very good indeed.”
“Agreed,” Juliet said, screwing off the top of the glue pot. “Once we get the sideburns and the hat on, nobody would ever know that you are not Archibald.”
“Good luck to them trying to guess it,” Cordelia said.
“I’m beginning to even feel like Archibald,” Miss Mayton said in a very gravelly voice.
“Viola,” Juliet said, “you brought a paintbrush?”
“Just here,” Viola said, handing Juliet the brush.
“I’ll hold the bag of fur while you paint on the glue,” Juliet said. “After all, you are the artist and must do it, just as I helped Rosalind with the demand note since I am the wordsmith.”
“You all do work so very well together,” Miss Mayton said. “Oh, that tickles!”
Viola had just painted a long stripe of glue from above the top of her aunt’s cheek to her chin.
“Very good, Viola,” Rosalind said, “make it very wide. We have piles of Bess’ fur and we wish to disguise our aunt’s face as much as possible.”
Once the glue was on, Juliet handed clumps of fur to Viola, who applied it to her aunt’s face in a very artistic manner.
