“That is just what I thought,” Cordelia said. “It must be a constant worry over one’s family.”
“But what is being done to stop them?” the duke asked.
“It is not so much what is being done to stop them,” Cordelia said, “as it is to find out why they erupt so they might predict when next it might occur.”
Though Cordelia was certain on that particular point of the paper, she realized that she was not at all certain about the rest of it. What, particularly, was being studied? Was it the soil round the volcano?
That sounded vaguely familiar, though there were no associated facts coming along with the idea.
She realized that though she’d read the Royal Society paper, once she’d understood the gist of the problem, her mind had flown off to imagining the people faced with such a problem.
Cordelia had spent a deal of time thinking of one family in particular—a mother, father, son, and daughter living very nearby a smoking volcano somewhere in the South Seas. But that family was not actually in the paper.
“I always did worry about Vesuvius during my time in Italy,” Miss Mayton said.
“Ah,” the duke said, “forever wondering when you were going to have to run for your life, eh Miss Mayton?”
“Oh dear no,” Miss Mayton said. “It was the gentlemen of my acquaintance I worried about. Might one throw themselves into it over unrequited love? Several of my suitors made threats about it.”
“Chucking themselves into a volcano over disappointed hopes?” the duke asked. Cordelia thought the duke, while exceedingly genial, was not of a particularly romantic temperament.
Miss Mayton nodded. “Though, it was only Gregorio who was to suffer a tragic fate and he did it by dealing himself a deadly blow. In the end, it was nothing to do with a volcano—ironic, is it not?”
Cordelia could not tell if the duke saw the irony in worrying about a volcanic end and then getting an entirely different one.
The duke looked at his duchess and said, “We ought to introduce Miss Mayton to Freddy. Lord Germaine, Miss Mayton, I think you might enjoy his company.”
“If you are not opposed to a missing hand,” the duchess said.
“A tiger took it,” the duke said, shaking his head. “One ought not go into a tiger’s cage while the tiger is still in it.”
“Was it a case of unrequited love?” Miss Mayton asked, seeming very interested to hear more about Freddy.
“It was a case ofsomething,” the duke said.
The dinner went on very well, with much spoken of regarding Freddy. Cordelia found herself relieved that the subject had been changed to that individual and his mishap with a tiger.
She was not so relieved to find that she really recalled very little about the paper on volcanoes, so rapt had she been in considering the imaginary family that lived next to one.
It did shake her confidence in her studies. Especially when she realized she’d done that quite often. She’d struggle through some treatise or other and then her mind would go flying off to the people involved in the situation.
She’d read one about frogs in a pond and their life cycle, though she only vaguely remembered the lifecycle and mostly remembered the little girl she’d pictured who’d sat by the pond and watched it all happen. The girl’s name was Penny and she’d named all the tadpoles. Then Penny had a charming conversation with her father about how the tadpoles were getting on.
Cordelia had a sinking feeling that her mind was not equipped to keep up with Lord Harveston’s mind.
Hismind would not go gallivanting off to invent young Penny watching the tadpoles.
After dinner, Cordelia had thought they would retire to the drawing room. She supposed she would be asked to play. Perhaps there would be cards.
She’d been very surprised to hear of lawn bowling by candlelight.
Though Lady Theodora had counseled against it, they all very soon found themselves out of doors and the men engaged in a tournament.
Cordelia could not say who had won. She could notseewho had won.
Though, as they retired for the night, Lord Hamill made a great show of claiming that Lord Harveston had trounced them.
It seemed he was to be good at everything now.
