“Well then, I would rail against it. I should condemn it left and right, up and down, backward and forward. I should issue the cut direct a hundred times to a hundred people. And, if that were not enough, perhaps I would be pushed to the extreme of arranging certain meetings on certain greens. Very early in the morning, if you understand me.”
Lady Viola smiled. “I rather think I do.”
Before he could claim he would aim cannonballs at all of London in defense of Lady Viola, Lady Hightower called for everyone to find their seat.
*
Tattleton had beenin and out of the drawing room for various requests from Lady Cordelia and Lady Juliet, along with Lady Rosalind, who was visiting her sisters.
Or rather, he should say Her Grace, the Duchess of Conbatten, née Lady Rosalind Bennington. It felt something of an honor to wait upon the drawing room when one of the occupants was a duchess.
Of course, it was an honor that could run one off one’s feet.
First, they wished for a bowl of shelled almonds for the horrible bird. Tattleton had been alarmed to come into the room and note that the creature’s cage door was wide open and it was waddling round on the floor.
It had even had the audacity to defecate on the carpet, and then just sashay away as if it had done nothing at all!
From what he could gather from their one-sided conversations with the wretch, the ladies were determined to teach that cursed avian to say nicer words than murder.
He wished them good luck with it.
After that, he’d been called in several times for tea, then a plate of cakes, then fruit.
Naturally, with all the coming and going, he could not help but to overhear some of the conversations that were had between the sisters.
Aside from having an idiot bird shouting about murder, it had all sounded very usual. Lady Cordelia performed just a little bit from her Desdemona death scene. Lady Juliet had recited an ode to Lady Rawley and her doilies, whatever that was supposed to mean.
It was only toward the end of the evening that he overheard something that gave him a deal of pause. A great deal of pause.
As far as he could understand it, Lady Viola had once fancied herself in love with a tinker’s boy with red hair.
Of course, he remembered that perfectly well. She’d mooned about for two weeks and said a lot of dramatic things like she was certain she was on the verge of dying from a broken heart or, if she did not die, she would enter a monastery. Fortunately, she got a pony at the end of the second week and that was the end of it.
But there was something they spoke of that he didn’t know anything about—they said the boy had suggested they run off to Gretna Green.
It was preposterous. Certainly, if the fellow had said anything of the sort it had been a joke. They had been children, no more than eight years old!
That was odd enough, but what came next sent a shiver down his spine.
Lady Viola was to send a rumor round thetonabout this tinker’s boy. That notion was conceived of to give Lord Baderston ample chances to defend Lady Viola’s honor and prove his loyalty.
Of course, he’d already girded his loins to encounter another very bad plan launched by the ladies. But this?
This was madness! One did not start rumors about oneself. One started rumors about other people.
It seemed to him a highly dangerous thing to do. With the help of the queen, one might be able to sweep an arranged kidnapping under the rug, but if a lady was to somehow ruin her own reputation…
What could he do to stop it, though?
As always seemed to happen in these situations, Tattleton felt he ought to go to the earl. However, he could never compose the right explanation without sounding like a madman.
What was he to say this time? ‘You see, my lord, Lady Viola is planning to damage her reputation so that a certain Lord Baderston can defend her. This very bad plan has come about because he must prove his loyalty and apparently things have gone along too smoothly to give him his opportunity.’
Had they learned nothing from last year?
Amidst his fretting, he tried very hard to ignore the shouting from the now darkened drawing room. Chester had been returned to his cage and the ladies had retired, which he supposed the bird was not in favor of.
“Murder!” Chester shouted.
