“Aunt, I really do not know if my salon is, well I’m not sure if it would be…you see, it’s likely to be rather dull to someone of your temperament.”
“Say no more, my dear nephew, I understand you perfectly.”
“Do you?” Percival asked, both perplexed and cautiously joyful. Was the whole thing just gone away?
“I will do it, have no fear on the front.”
“Do what?” Percival asked, beginning to fear on that front.
“I will keep my enormous creativity under wraps. I realize your friends are not likely to excel at imagination, being so mired in facts all the time. I shan’t intimidate them with my prowess—it’s not their fault!”
Intimidate them with what? With her imagination?
Percival gripped his reins until his knuckles were white. He felt like a fish in a net fighting for an escape.
“I will even go so far as to speak to the other ladies I will bring along. After all, your intellectuals do not tread the hallowed boards as we do, allowing our creative visions to soar. You already know Lady Agatha and Mrs. Robinson of course. And then I intend to invite a certain Miss Mayton and her niece, Lady Cordelia Bennington. I’m certain they will accept.”
“Miss Mayton?”
“Very helpful woman, she assisted me several times when I found myself in a pinch. But goodness, perhaps you know her already. She is Lord Darden’s aunt and I had quite forgotten you were a member of that fellow’s little club.”
“The Young Bucks Club,” Percival said stonily.
He certainly did know Miss Mayton. Everybody either knew her or knewofher. She was a spinster dressed in widow’s weeds who spun outrageous tales of suicidal lotharios knocking themselves off in one absurd way after another. Nobody could quite figure out if she were senile or an inveterate liar or just liked to amuse herself by shocking people.
My God, it was bad enough that the members would be faced with his aunt and her two cronies, but Miss Mayton too! It was a nightmare playing out in real life.
“Now, what is it we will be discussing on Tuesday?”
“Whether Theobald’sDouble Falsehoodis really based on Shakespeare’sCardenio,” Percival said dully.
“I’ve never heard of either play, but I am looking forward to meeting all your friends. Iwillneed their input for this year’s theatrical! And do not tell me you cannot attend me this time—I checked with your footman and he says he’s not heard of any spring steward’s ceremony scheduled for this year. You are quite free, is that not delightful?”
Lady Rawley rapped her cane on the roof of her carriage and said, “Smith, carry on!”
As Percival watched his aunt’s carriage depart, he had a sinking feeling his salon would never be the same again.
Chapter Three
Miss Mayton andJuliet had spent the passing days in the carriage convincing Cordelia that Mrs. Dorothy Jordan was an idiot who would not know a tragic and poignant scene if it hit her over the head with her own overdressed bonnet.
Her confidence having been greatly restored, Cordelia found herself rather sanguine over the matter. For one, so many of her relations adored her interpretation of Desdemona’s demise. The only person who was not bowled over by it was Beatrice’s husband, Van Doren. The viscount was such a crank that if Mrs. Jordan chose to align herself with him, well that was a very unfortunate comment on the lady’s judgment.
For another, they were closing in on London. Somewhere in that town was her Corinthian. Somewhere was a strapping gentleman with arms so muscular that his tailor almost despaired of encasing them in material. Her Corinthian was no doubt doing something sporting at this moment, and wondering when his lady would present herself.Hewould adore her Desdemona.
And then as a further distraction, she, Juliet, and Miss Mayton had just come upon a remarkable scene at The Angel at Hindon. The earl was still in the yard, no doubt conferring with the innkeeper regarding their dinner, while they had been drawn to the door to the kitchens over what they’d heard there.
The smallest and loveliest of gentle calls, the kind only a baby animal of some sort could make.
They peeked round the doorframe and were delighted to see an elderly gentleman holding a kid, the baby goat certainly being no older than a few days.
“Can’t you help me out? His ma died this morning,” the man said.
“We are not serving goat at The Angel,” the cook said.
Juliet gasped. Cordelia grabbed at Miss Mayton’s sleeve.
“Serving?” the man cried. “I just want some milk for it! Just enough to hold me over until I can sell the little mite.”
