He hurried from the room before his mother could reply.
Now, he was drifting round near Lady Jellerbey’s front doors, making a great show of looking as if he were pining for Lady Felicity. His father glared at him from the other side of the hall and his mother patted the viscount’s arm to keep his volcanic temper in check.
The one thing that had begun to weigh on his mind was how long he could keep the whole ruse going. What if Rustmont did not cooperate? After all, Percy had invented the idea that Rustmont must be made envious. What if the earl ignored whatever display he and Lady Felicity would put on for his benefit?
Percy gave his shoulders a little shake. He could not contemplate defeat when the game had just begun.
There. There she was. Lady Felicity was looking smashing in a crème silk dress with the light adornment of a subtle braid at the bottom of the cap sleeves and along the neckline. She wore a rather large emerald round her neck. Very large actually. Why did that seem daring?
He supposed he was so used to young ladies hardly adorning themselves at all—a gold chain, a small cross, maybe a string of undersized pearls. Here was a whopping stone any duchesswould be pleased to call her own. She was not a lady who wished to hide in the shadows.
Percy hurried over, and as he did so he saw Lord Rustmont just coming in the doors. Was that inconvenient or perfect? On the one hand, it was Lady Felicity’s fever dream to make that stiff fellow envious, so that was perfect. The lady would play her part and that would help him on the other side—convincing his parents he was set on her.
Of course, it would be very inconvenient if the lord paid no notice of their charade.
“Lady Felicity,” he said, with a sweeping bow. “Lady Marchfield, Your Grace.”
“It’s the mister again, eh?” the duke said.
Percy nodded, as it seemed to be the sum total of what the duke knew about him.
“Mr. Stratton,” Lady Marchfield said through pursed lips.
“He’s Stratton? What ho? This is the game, is it?” the duke said, laughing so heartily he clutched at his rather round stomach.
As Percy had not the slightest idea what the duke meant, he just smiled. In his experience, smiling was generally suitable for every occasion but for a deathbed or funeral.
“Really, Papa,” Lady Felicity said.
Percy did not know if Lady Felicity understood her father’s cryptic remarks either, but as was beginning to seem usual she was clearly amused by him.
Behind him, Percy heard his father say, “Stratton, do come away and see what’s on the sideboard in the library.”
The sideboard in the library? If that was not a pathetic gambit, he did not know what was. His poor viscount was attempting to be sly and lead him away from Lady Felicity. Whatever his father was, sly was not on the list.
Percy turned and found his father red in the face as if he’d run across the great hall. His mother had stayed behind and was just now wringing her hands from across the room.
“Your Grace, Lady Marchfield, Lady Felicity,” Percy said, “my father, Viscount Denderby.”
“The duke and I are acquainted,” the viscount said.
“Are we?” the duke said, looking puzzled. “When? How? Remind me.”
Through rather gritted teeth, the viscount said, “The last we met was in Lady Vanderwake’s drawing room some twenty years ago.”
The duke shrugged. “Not much to go on, if you ask me.”
“The lady’s curtains were set afire?” the viscount said.
“The curtain fire! That’s right, it’s all coming back to me. I was playfully keeping the candle away from Lady Margaret, as she claimed she wished to read. Well! These things happen.”
Didthose things happen?
“But say,” the duke went on, seeming very jolly to recall the curtain fire, “you’re the sire of this jackanapes mister, are you?” He’d pointed in Percy’s direction to make clear who he referred to.
Percy’s eyes widened. He never understood much of what the duke said, but why on earth should he be called a jackanapes?
Unless Lady Felicity had informed her father of the ruse, a circumstance that he’d not foreseen. He’d been too wrapped up in what a usual father would think of such a thing. It seemed the duke thought it a very good joke.
