Without detection from his father at any rate. He’d given a kitchen maid a scare, but once she realized what he was doing the saucy girl had winked and pressed a forefinger over her lips.
Radcliff had been waiting for him.
“He’s been looking out for you all afternoon,” his valet said. “He questioned me about where you went and where you were going this evening. He even proposed driving by the duke’s house to see if you had called there.”
Percy laughed. “I do not suppose he had a particular plan for what to do when he would have arrived to that house.”
“No, I think that’s what held him back from doing it. That, along with the viscountess pointing out that the duke would make some sort of joke about it and tell people Lord Denderby had been haunting his house, wishing to be invited inside.”
Percy nodded. “I suppose my mother was then promptly warned to no purpose.”
“Precisely.”
“Does he know where I am engaged this evening?”
“No, I hid the invitation and blacked it out on your calendar in case he looked.”
“Good man. I’ll go back out the way I came in and he’ll be none the wiser.”
“So this is it? You will defy your father, and your own plans I might add, and secure Lady Felicity?”
“Do not be so nosy. I will do what I will do when I decide to do it and that is all.”
Radcliff smirked. “I see. Have you sent flowers? That way, when you do what you will do when you decide to do it, you do not take her unawares?
“Flowers? Are you mad? They make her sneeze. What sort of gentleman would I be if I set out to make her sneeze, I wonder?”
“Ah yes, the sneezing. Well, I suppose you’ll want one of your best coats.”
“Naturally.”
“And a spectacular Radcliff knot.”
“Of course.”
Radcliff seemed much cheered by even the mention of his knot. “They see it, they want it for themselves, and they cannot have it!” he whispered to himself. “They’ll never figure out how it’s done.”
His valet had since crept down and back up the servants’ stairs with a pitcher of hot water, Percy was cleaned up and dressed, capping off his attire with the wondrous Radcliff knot.
Getting out of the house should have been as straightforward as getting into it, but that was not the case. He was once more waylaid by his father.
It seemed the saucy kitchen maid could not help telling the cook of Percy’s slipping in, who in turn told the butler, who in turn told the viscount.
The crafty old soldier had the door to the servants’ stairs locked and Percy was forced to use the main staircase. The viscount had been waiting for him in the great hall.
“That’s it!” the viscount shouted. “You are not to set foot out of this house until you’ve taken in some sense!”
The viscountess, hearing the shouting, came out from the drawing room. “Stratton, I did not even know you were at home,” she said.
“Neither of us would know,” the viscount said, “as he crept in through the servants’ entrance like a housebreaker.”
“Father,” Percy said, “I am going to be late for the Marchioness of Glastonheld’s dinner.”
“I don’t care whose dinner! I don’t care if it is the queen’s dinner.”
“Do not be ridiculous, of course you would care if it were the queen’s dinner,” the viscountess said laughing.
“I warn you!”
