Felicity was quite sure Mrs. Righthadbeen the author of whatever had happened. After all, it was she that had ensured that Felicity did not go.
“And you, Felicity!” the duke said with a snort. “Very clever to come down with a headache! Glad you did, wouldn’t have been right to go.”
“Papa,” Serenity said, “you really ought to tell us what happened at Lady Cyprion’s house. Was she very stiff-lipped and then you teased her and she went mad like our aunt does?”
“There is no Lady Cyprion,” the duke said, wiping tears from his eyes. “It was a cyprian party.” The duke paused. “Ah, you younger girls perhaps should not know anything aboutthat. Let’s just say there was not a stiff-lipped lady among them.”
“Do you mean to say, Papa,” Lady Felicity said, hazarding a guess at the situation, “that the ladies there were, well they were… of low morals?”
“The lowest!” the duke said with a snort.
“How did you know, Papa?” Valor asked.
“Never you mind how I knew,” the duke said with a chuckle.
“Was it the ladies’ clothes?” Valor pressed on. “The vicar always says that clothes can advertise your morals.”
“I think the vicar meant the lack of clothes, Valor,” Winsome said. “He’s very determined that every lady wear a fichu.”
“Yes, well,” the duke said, “the clothes were definitely a tip-off—not a fichu in sight.”
“I suppose our aunt went positively mad,” Patience said. “I cannot imagine what she had to say to you in the carriage.”
This, for some reason, sent the duke into a new round of heaving laughter. It was some minutes before he could recover himself. Then he said, “That’s just it, I left her there!”
Felicity pressed her lips together to stop from laughing, though everybody else was not as successful. Particularly Mrs. Right, who was laughing behind a handkerchief, her shakingshoulders giving her away. Valor laughed along with everyone, though Felicity doubted very much she understood what she was laughing about. The only person not gripped with hilarity was Mr. Sykes-Wycliff, who stood clutching at the doorframe.
“Papa,” Felicity said, attempting to control her laughter, “I think you are making that up. You did not leave our aunt. How could you have?”
“Simplest thing in the world,” the duke said. “Knew what I was looking at in an instant and slipped right out before my carriage had time to pull down the street. I hope she’s having a good time!”
That hope was punctuated by the loud crash of the front doors being flung open from the front hall.
Not a moment later, Lady Marchfield came through the doors. She was heaving in breaths and her bonnet was quite askew. This very naturally sent the duke into more paroxysms of laughter.
Felicity was quite sure Lady Marchfield was on the verge of giving her father the what-for of the century. Instead, her aunt turned her eyes on Mrs. Right. She pointed and shouted, “You!”
Mrs. Right threw her chin up and said, “Yes, your ladyship?”
“Do you think I do not know it was you who put that shameful appointment in my brother’s book?”
“I cannot think what you mean, your ladyship,” Mrs. Right said calmly. “Youmanage the duke’s calendar.”
“I would never accept an invitation to a party of that base nature. Never!”
Mrs. Right shrugged. “Everybody makes mistakes now and again.”
“Roland, you must do something about this!”
“Must I, now? Seems to me you can’t prove how that entertainment got into my book. It looks like your handwriting, after all.”
“That is another thing! She forged my handwriting!”
“Prove it,” the duke said jovially.
“And then, to leave me there, with those sorts of people! I was forced to hail down a hackney just to get away!”
“We understand none of the ladies wore fichus,” Valor said. “The vicar would be shocked to his shoes.”
