Lady Marchfield stared at Valor. Then she turned to the duke. “If you are not careful, Roland, you will ruin your daughters’ chances of a good match. What if Felicity had gone? What if word had got out that Lady Felicity Nicolet had been seen in the company of… those women!”
“Lucky she had a headache,” the duke said. “She’s right as rain now, though.”
“Lucky…” Lady Marchfield said softly. From Felicity’s view, her aunt was making rapid calculations in her head. “Do you suggest that your eldest daughter has been pulled into this by that wretched housekeeper?”
“Felicity was not pulled into anything,” the duke said. “She had a headache and very sensibly stayed at home.”
Lady Marchfield’s hands were clenching and unclenching and Felicity thought her aunt would very much like to box her brother’s ears. She turned to Mr. Sykes-Wycliff, who was just now blinking and unblinking his eyes in a nervous fashion.
“Call the duke’s carriage!” she shouted. “I will go home this instant and inform my lord of what I have been subjected to this night. He will know how to answer this insult!”
“Bet he tells you the answer is in the Far East and you should go looking for it,” the duke said. “He’ll say—don’t trouble yourself about hurrying home!”
“My lady,” Mr. Sykes-Wycliff said, his voice all a-tremble, “the coachman has just put the horses away.”
“Get that coachman back on his box or I will drive the team myself,” Lady Marchfield said in grim determination.
Mr. Sykes-Wycliff fled the room to do as he was bid.
The next minutes were spent listening to Lady Marchfield lecture the duke, and then lecture Felicity and then give a dire warning to Mrs. Right—she had better watch her step or she would find herself thrown to the street with no reference.
Of course, nobody but Lady Marchfield thought there was the least danger of it.
Her final words to the duke were, “Grow up, Roland. For all of our sakes, grow up.” She turned on her heel, practically ran over the butler, and left the house.
“What an evening, eh?” the duke said, pouring himself a second glass of brandy. “Never been so amused in my life. By the by,” he said, looking at a very shaken Mr. Sykes-Wycliff, “I will need nine pounds in ready money on the morrow to settle a bill. And I want it all in pence.”
“In pence, my lord?”
“In pence, put it in a flour sack.”
Naturally, their father was questioned quite closely by his daughters as to why he might need over two-thousand coins, but he would not say. All they could gather was that it amused him.
At the mention of the morrow, Felicity’s thoughts drifted to the ball. Then they stayed there. As her father relived the amusement of the cyprian party over and over, her thoughts were filled with Mr. Percy Stratton.
She was beginning to even be a little fond of his given name, Percy, despite her earlier claim that it was a good name for a goldfish.
*
Mrs. Right couldnot be more pleased. Her plan to send Lady Marchfield to a cyprian’s party had come off without a bump. After her girls had gone up to bed, she spent a comfortable hourwith the duke as they sipped their brandy and he described the goings-on of the evening that he’d chosen not to advertise to his children. This, all under the wide-eyed gaze of Mr. Sykes-Wycliff.
How it had unfolded exceeded even her hopeful imagination. The carriage had arrived at a rather regular white stone house on Cork Street. There had been nothing going on out of doors that would have indicated anything amiss, which made perfect sense—any lady of that persuasion looking to ally her fortunes with a lord must be painstakingly discreet.
A liveried footman had opened their carriage door and helped Lady Marchfield to the pavement. Another older fellow in matching livery had opened the doors. Everything had an air of solid respectability.
They had proceeded in and found a lady greeting her guests.
That was when the duke’s suspicions were first roused. The line was all gentlemen, and the lady greeting her guests went a bit wide-eyed at the sight of Lady Marchfield.
Lady Misery, it turned out, was a rather unobservant creature. They reached the head of the line and Lady Marchfield said, “Lady Cyprion, charmed. This is my brother, the Duke of Pelham,” and then had proceeded right into the drawing room.
As for himself, he’d begun to guess at the lay of the land. He took one quick peek into the drawing room, saw ladies in various states of deshabille hanging on the arms of attending gentlemen. There was even a lady who had located herself on the lap of her preferred conversationalist. Lady Marchfield stood in the middle of the room, as motionless as a statue.
He hightailed it out the doors and laughed all the way home.
It was all very gratifying.
As for Mr. Sykes-Wycliff, he’d spent the better part of this morning collecting nine pounds in pence. Mrs. Right could not imagine what it was for, nor what he’d had to do to get it, but hewas currently slumped at the servants’ table. The sack of coins had been given over to one of the coachmen.
