The duchess leaned forward and said quietly, “I will tell you a secret, as I believe I can trust you. I required the very same from Conbatten.”
“Did you?” Roland asked. He’d been right, Conbattendidknow how this whole proving loyalty thing worked.
“Oh yes, onlyIrequired courageousness. Well, I can tell you, it was no easy feat. I eventually had to arrange my own kidnapping to give him a proper opportunity. You may have heard it whispered about for a time.”
“Oh, I never listen to gossip…”
“Absolutely everybody listens to gossip, but it is no matter,” the duchess said. “The queen made it known that she did not like that particular circumstance talked about and so it was quickly forgotten. She’s very fond of Conbatten, you know.”
“I see,” Roland said, “but I am at a loss over what I am to do, Duchess. Am I to wait to hear that she’s been kidnapped? Or keep my eyes open for kidnappers and stop them? Who are they? How will I recognize them?”
Peals of laughter filled the drawing room. “Goodness, none of that,” she said. “Viola values the quality of loyalty and that would be unlikely to require such derring-do. I cannot speculate on what might come up thatwouldrequire loyalty, I can only say—be at the ready. When Viola requires you to be firmly in her camp, then make it known that you are firmly in her camp.”
“Of course I will, there is no other camp I would consider!”
“Just as I’d hoped.”
“There is one thing…you see…my mother…she can be…less than accommodating. She’s had the idea of another lady in mind, which I assure you is her idea alone. So what I am saying is, perhaps to defy my mother and stand firmly in Lady Viola’s camp would show the right amount of loyalty?”
“That would certainly be a start, Lord Baderston.”
A start. Well, a start was at least a place to start.
Chapter Eight
Only an hourago, Viola was being dressed for Lady Hightower’s musical evening when Rosalind hurried into her bedchamber.
“Vi, there you are,” her sister said. “I was so hoping to catch you before you went out. Lord Baderston came to see me today.”
Viola spun round, nearly knocking Lynette over, who was valiantly wrestling with her buttons.
“He did?” she cried.
“Well, actually he came to see Conbatten, but my dear husband was out acquiring the perfect horse for me. Her name is Mabel and she has been thoroughly lectured about never daring to throw me.”
“Rosalind! Do tell me what Lord Baderston wanted before I burst into a thousand bits.”
Rosalind threw herself onto the bed. “Well, it is just this—he thinks you are perfect and he is standing at the ready, prepared to prove his loyalty at the first opportunity.”
Viola sighed. It was as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Though, as soon as it lifted, a small bit of that weight settled back down again.
“His mother, though,” she said. “She does not like me at all. She’s come right out and said so in the most horrible terms and she said he would jump when she told him to jump. Then, she did tell him to jump, and he jumped.”
Rosalind waved her hands as if it were of no consequence. “Oh yes, he mentioned his mother. He wondered if standing up against her would accomplish proving his loyalty. I said it would be a start.”
“Yes, that is true,” Viola admitted. “I have thought just the same. For really, is it any great matter for an earl to make up his own mind, regardless of what his dowager mother makes of it? It is one thing for us to be directed by our father, but Lord Baderston is an earl—he has already come into his own.”
“Agreed. To my mind, managing the dowager is to be looked upon as an expected minimum,” Rosalind said. “I think of his mother as similar to my pickpocket—it is a place to begin. Though, I have been pondering how it all plays out, what shall you do to give him his moment of proving himself to you?”
Lynette had finished buttoning up Viola’s dress, a lovely plum silk.
“Cordelia, Juliet, and I did have an idea yesterday and we’ve spent all day today thinking on it. We thought I’d send a harmless rumor round. Something interesting enough to be bandied about but not truly terrible. Then, Baderston must step forward and defend, or do nothing and prove himself the disappointment of my life. Do you remember my tinker?”
“The little redheaded boy all those years ago?”
“Just the one,” Viola said. “I plan on mentioning to someone who might be relied upon to gossip that at one time when I was very young, that tinker proposed that we run off to Gretna Green and that I did consider it, on account of his lovely red hair.”
“Oh I see,” Rosalind said, looking intrigued. “The story does a double duty. It gives Lord Baderston something to stand by you on, and it also tells him how much you like his own hair.”
