Lady Clara may have sent the untrue story around, but at the end of the day, it was his fault. If Lady Clara had not been led to believe there was an engagement to him in the offing, she would not be so vindictive now.
She was vindictive to Lady Viola because she’d noted his interest in her. Lady Viola was being punished on his account and, therefore, he must avenge her.
In any case, if he were absolutely forced to shoot somebody, he did not mind that it was Setterdown.
*
Tattleton felt doomsettle on his shoulders like a cold blanket. As a butler, he was often not privy to all the details of a thing. He heard this and that, in dribs and drabs, and then must piece the bits together to make some sort of whole.
He very much wished he’d not pieced anything together at this particular moment.
Lady Viola was being disinvited by people in society. She had fallen out with theton.
Lady Viola! Disinvited! It was inconceivable—she was an earl’s daughter.
The reason she was being shunned was not entirely clear, though he gathered it was something along the lines of a story about the redhaired tinker’s boy that Lady Viola had admired when she’d been very young.
Why was anybody talking about that tinker’s boy? Why could they possibly care that she’d mooned over the little fellow when she’d been a young child?
He had, of course, been previously aware that the young ladies had formed the very bad plan of inventing a rumor and sending it round so that the red-haired fellow of today could defend Lady Viola in the face of it.
Tattleton presumed the tale of a tinker’s boy had been it, though he could not fathom why they’d chosen that story or why thetonseemed to take such offense to it.
An eight-year-old boy who’d winked and an eight-year-old girl who’d taken it to heart—where was the shame in that? There must be earls all over England who were in possession of dramatic daughters who swore they would pine away in heartbreak at the age of eight.
Did thetonquestion Lady Viola’s taste on account of it? Would it have made a difference if the boy in question had been higher placed? Society’s rules were often mysterious, but this was the most mysterious thing he’d yet encountered.
Whatever trouble was brewing, it was Miss Mayton’s doing, he was sure of it. Never was there a woman so unqualified to guide young ladies.
Of course, the earl would not think so. Not when Lady Beatrice and Lady Rosalind were so satisfactorily married. But he, Horace J. Tattleton, had eyes in his head! Watching Miss Mayton lead the young ladies forward was akin to viewing them all stagger through a moonless night on the Cliffs of Dover, hoping they did not accidentally go over the side and plummet into the sea. Sooner or later, though, the disastrous plunge would occur.
Perhaps it had. Perhaps this was it.
Just now, though he was in the hall, he heard Lord Darden practically shout, “But everybody is saying you actually traveled to Gretna Green, not that he asked and you declined.”
What was this? Gretna Green?
Miss Mayton’s quiet voice, if he could understand her properly, was explaining that was not the story they’d told.
Of course it would not be the story they told. Did they not understand the nature of gossip at all? One plus one equals two, until in the blink of an eye it equals five or six or seven. A fish caught begins the size of a man’s hand until it becomes the size of his arm. Stories always grow, they never shrink.
What would the earl say? The poor lord had been shielded from other of Miss Mayton’s terrible ideas, but they could not hide this one. The earl would go somewhere in the town, and somebody would say something about it.
Then, an icicle of fear stabbed at Tattleton’s heart. There were other letters that had arrived to the house for both Darden and the earl. They were sitting on the silver tray, waiting to be collected.
Perhaps the earl and Lord Darden were being disinvited too.
Tattleton staggered and sat down heavily on a chair in the great hall.
Could it be true? Was the entire family in disgrace?
Was he to be known as the butler to a disgraced family? Only days ago, he’d been happily contemplating that he was the butler to a family now related by marriage to a duke.
“Murder!” Chester shouted in the drawing room.
Tattleton sighed, long and heavy. He was the butler to a disgraced family that owned a bird that shouted about murder.
Where had it all gone wrong?
