“He seems very keen,” the earl said.
“Is he not marvelous, Papa?” Viola asked.
“Well, my dear, he seems a nice enough fellow.”
A real footman came by and exchanged Miss Mayton’s glass with another, as she had finished her own. Viola thought they really all should be careful of it. She was halfway through her own when she remembered to pause, as it seemed once a footman noted a glass was empty, another would fly into one’s hands.
A second footman stopped at their grouping with a tray of Lady Bloomington’s idea of entremets. He gravely announced them to be a bite of seared pineapple wrapped in bacon.
The small morsels artfully surrounded an arrangement of upright greenery and were pierced with a toothpick. Viola was handed a linen napkin and then followed Darden’s lead in selecting her own piece from the tray.
She had never tried pineapple, though of course she had heard all about them. Mrs. Pickeward from their own neighborhood was forever talking of how she’d attended her cousin’s wedding breakfast and the cake had been decorated with pineapple rings. Beyond that, Viola knew they were near impossible to get, and near impossible to pay for.
The flavor was rather delightful and spoke of sunshine.
Just as soon as she wondered what to do with the remaining toothpick and the napkin, a footman swept round with an empty tray to collect them.
Lady Bloomington had some very interesting ideas!
Lord Baderston returned to them, and Viola could not stop herself from laughing as he carried yet another tray.
“Yes, I have been bullied by that butler again,” Lord Baderston said, laughing with her. “I did attempt to clear the confusion, but apparently the fellow has no time for chattering. Miss Mayton, I see you require another.”
Lord Baderston handed her aunt a third glass of champagne, though he would have supposed it was only the second. He then collared a passing footman. “Do take this, young fellow. I am not a footman; it is my costume. I am Lord Baderston.”
The boy looked confused.
“That butler keeps foisting trays upon me,” Lord Baderston said for clarification.
This caused the boy to look a bit terrified. “I’ll tell Mr. Brownley of the confusion, my lord.”
“Do not bother,” Lord Baderston said kindly. “If he attempts to burden me with another tray, I will tell him myself.”
The footman looked relieved that he would not be the one to tell Mr. Brownley that he’d been ordering a lord about the place. He hurried away.
“You are a good sport about it, Baderston,” Darden said.
“I cannot be offended,” Lord Baderston said. “Poor Mr. Brownley appears to be under some stress. He keeps muttering that ‘everything must be perfect.’”
Lord Baderston handed Viola her card, and she was pleased that he’d been so ambitious as to mark himself down on it already. He would take the first, as there would be no sit-down supper.
They were then joined by Conbatten and Rosalind, he in a domino and she coming as Elizabeth Woodville. Rosalind’s blue silk dress was charmingly decorated with white roses for the House of York, and she wore a coronet of white roses.
The duke might wear a hood as a disguise all he liked, but it was always his height that gave him away. The only other man he might be confused with was Lord Harveston, who was also exceedingly tall.
Viola had hoped that Beatrice might attend too, but Bea had sent a note over in the afternoon that said she and Van Doren would spend a quiet night at home, having husband and wife conversations.
She hoped that meant Beatrice had followed Rosalind’s lead and was even now wearing her diamond necklace and drinking champagne with her husband in a tub of water set at precisely ninety-eight degrees. Of course, there was no telling with Van Doren, but if anybody could get him to do it, it was Beatrice.
As they made jolly conversation, Viola noted Rosalind’s eyes slightly narrow. Her sister stared over her shoulder, and it was not too long a time before she discovered why.
“Baderston,” the Dowager Countess of Baderston said to her son.
Viola shivered. Somehow, the lady’s tone was so cold that it chilled the air around her. Her costume was no less prepossessing. She very clearly styled herself as Queen Elizabeth, the stiff ruff round her neck saying it all.
Viola flushed as she realized the ghastly combination—she as Mary, Queen of the Scots, and the dowager coming as Elizabeth, the rival queen who would condemn Mary to her death.
The dowager gave her a little smirk, and so the connection had not been lost on her either.
