“Are you going?” Patience asked.
“Does the sun rise in the east?” Mrs. Right said with a chuckle.
“Does it?” Valor asked, apparently never noticing which direction the sun rose.
“It does, Valor,” Verity said. “Always, unless there is a cosmic disturbance and then it might not.”
“Liar,” Winsome said to Verity.
“Stop with all these clues!” Valor said. “Mrs. Right, are you really going?”
“Of course I am, you dear little mite. I would hardly leave you to face your nightmares alone.”
Valor whispered into her stuffed rabbit’s well-worn ear, apparently alerting her to the idea that Mrs. Right would be on the scene if they experienced any nightmares in Town. The rabbit, going by the name of Mrs. Wendover, stared into the distance with her black and dead button eyes. Of all the nightmares Valor had, Felicity sometimes wondered how Mrs. Wendover never featured in them. There was something inherently unsettling about that rabbit.
However, she could not give much thought to Mrs. Wendover now. The important thing was that Mrs. Right would go with them to London! Felicity did not really think her father would get his way in that, though she supposed she should have. Mrs. Right had been all but running the duke’s life since the butler left.
Always unhappy and beleaguered, Mr. Herring had some sort of breakdown of the mind one spring morning. He’d left in a house-shaking fury, shouting about how he would not tolerate the “duke’s tomfoolery, the disordered workings of the house, and the most wretched housekeeper in England.” That had been over five years prior.
“Does Lady Marchfield know you’re going?” Felicity asked with interest. The two women, as far as she could see, were like oil and water.
“I doubt it,” Mrs. Right said, “but she’ll find out soon enough. The duke will drop it on her when it suits him. Of course, it only makes sense that I go. Wasn’t I there in those early years when His Grace and the duchess used to go to Town for the season? Who else knows that house better than me?”
This bit of information was particularly interesting to Felicity. She had thought the only people who knew anything about London were her father and her aunt. The duke could not be trusted to tell her anything rational and Lady Marchfield only ever talked about manners and rules.
“You know what it’s really like!” Serenity said. “You must tell us, as we do not have the first clue about it.”
Mrs. Right poured herself a cup of tea, as she always did bring an extra cup just in case she was needed. Winsome jumped up from the nearest chair and the housekeeper settled comfortably in it.
“The stories I could tell,” Mrs. Right murmured.
She was immediately beset by pleadings and cajolings, which was rather a tradition. Mrs. Right liked a fuss to be made before she would spill a story.
“They’re different creatures, thetonthat haunt London. Never in my life did I see so much prettiness on the outside and rottenness on the inside. Why, I remember a dinner at Pelham House where the Countess of Gentian said, ‘One hears the most alarming things these days.’”
Mrs. Right sipped her tea and nodded. It was abundantly clear that she’d never heard what the alarming thing was. Felicity was at a complete loss as to why that question was emblematic of rottenness on the inside.
Verity had nodded at Mrs. Right knowingly, though she was in the habit of pretending to know things she certainly did not.
Winsome’s brows knit. Valor had seemed to have lost track of the conversation now that the question of nightmares had been settled and put her attention on the tray of almond biscuits.
Grace shifted in her chair and promptly slid off of it, which was very usual and so could not be pinned on Mrs. Right’s opaque storytelling.
Serenity whispered to Patience. Patience nodded and asked, “What does it mean? What alarming thing?”
“Who knows? A sentence like that is a prelude,” Mrs. Right said. “Any lady who says that isreallysaying—‘I have terrible gossip to share but don’t want you to think I enjoy gossip so you better pull it out of me and then we will happily destroy another lady’s reputation.’”
“It never is,” Felicity said.
“Italwaysis,” Mrs. Right said, nodding vigorously.
“What else?” Felicity asked. “What else do you know about London?”
“The gentlemen are feckless and the ladies are fan-waving furies,” Mrs. Right said, looking supremely satisfied to have condemned the whole town in one fell swoop.
It sounded to Felicity as if they ventured into a regular viper’s pit. “But why should Papa wish to go there if he already knows what it’s like?” she asked.
Mrs. Right set her cup down. “He’s as mad as a spring hare, isn’t he?”
