Rosalind nodded and Lynette added the final touch—a gold crown. She would carry Boudicca in her heart as she faced the most momentous circumstance of her life.
Everything hung in the balance. Joy or despair. A happy future or gray shrouded years rolling one into the other like fog on the hills. Love, or lack of it.
“I am ready,” she said, throwing her shoulders back.
*
“Why take thering with you?” Henri asked, looking critically at Balthazar’s coat.
He had just tucked Lady Rosalind’s spectacular ruby ring into his inside coat pocket. The stone was one of the best he’d ever seen—the queen herself would be happy to own such a gem. It was set securely in a hinged, oval red leather box, the inside lined with white velvet to allow the ruby to shine.
“There is a lump!” Henri cried. “It ruins the line of the coat! It is not perfect. Everyone will see it is not perfect and wonder what has happened to Henri. Why does not Henri produce perfection, as he has always done?”
It amused Balthazar that his valet imagined he was a rather regular topic of conversation amongst theton.
“First, I am wearing a domino over it so nobody will see the devastation of my coat. Second, I am hoping the ring does not remain in my coat overlong and speedily reaches its destination on Lady Rosalind’s finger. Then, all perfection will be restored.”
“This is all very hasty,” Henri fretted.
“What am I to do?” Balthazar asked. “Am I to allow Lady Rosalind and Miss Mayton to plan more and more bizarre schemes?”
“That is just it!” Henri said. “Elle est aussi folle qu’un chat sur des charbons ardents.”
Balthazar suppressed his laughter. As mad as a cat on hot coals indeed.
“Which one is the cat on coals?” he asked. “Lady Rosalind or Miss Mayton?”
“Both! Ce sont des fous. I only say, what is the rush?”
“I see. You are determined, then, to wish for a more usual lady. Perhaps a grim lady who will look at the wine receipts and wonder where it is all going, and then she might make surprise visits to the servants’ hall to see what you are all doing down there.”
“Surprise visits?”
“And a cut down of wine.”
“But I am French!”
“Yes, you do mention that often.”
Henri sighed. “Alas, if you must have a woman in the house…then I suppose…you say she will not look at the wine receipts?”
“I highly doubt she will look at any receipts whatsoever. Lady Rosalind Bennington should not be troubled by such pedestrian matters.”
Henri nodded and Balthazar thought he was once more mollified that his rather relaxed lifestyle was not set to come to an end.
Balthazar only hoped his own bachelor lifestylewasset to come to an end.
Really, if she refused him, what would he do? There was not going to be another Lady Rosalind coming along.
“Wish me luck,” he said to his long-suffering valet.
“Bonne chance,” Henri said softly.
Bonne chance. Yes, that was what he needed. Bonne chance.
*
Rosalind and MissMayton had gone down to the great hall early, in anticipation of the hired carriage arriving. They’d told Tattleton all sorts of frightening things about Lady Hightower. She must not be kept waiting even a moment. As her carriage pulled up, they must be running out with nary a pause. Tattleton and the footmen were not to disturb themselves over it.
