“She spends the first part of the letter explaining how she’s getting on with driving the monsters out of her room. It did not go as well as she’d hoped on her first run at it, it was not a complete triumph. The monsters did flee when ordered, but they gained a habit of creeping back in later. However, she realized it was because she was not being forceful enough.”
“That all sounds very promising,” Miles said, for lack of anything better to say.
“Yes, yes, but then we get to the second part of the letter. That part is all aboutyou.”
Miles set down his coffee. “She’s written about me? Why? She does not still think I might be a murderer?”
Lady Margaret shook her head. “I will read it to you.”
You are my wisest friend, so I wonder if you have any advice. Lord D seems nice enough for an older gentleman and I am convinced that I was wrong when I thought he might be a murderer. (Mrs. Wendover agrees with me. She says if he is a murderer, then why are we all still alive? I could not argue with that.)
“Older gentleman?” Miles asked.
“Yes, well, she is eight, so anybody over the age of fifteen is Methuselah to her. The good news is, you are no longer suspected of murder—Mrs. Wendover has pleaded your case. Now, let me continue.”
Our Grace likes Lord D ever so well. She even likes his nose! Why? Nobody nose/knows. (That was a joke—I’m still laughing about it.)
I’ve seen this kind of liking before. Guess what happened last time? Felicity left us and now she lives forever with Mr. Stratton. (When she got married, nobody said it was permanent) So that’s the problem—I want Grace to be happy, but I don’t want her to leave like Felicity did.
What if all my sisters do that? I would be all alone! I would still have Mrs. Right, Mrs. Wendover, and my papa, and Thomas is my friend too. I’m not sure about Nelson, I think Serenity would take him away with her.
“Thomas is one of the footmen,” Lady Margaret added for clarity.
It is so hard to have Felicity gone. We have so much fun all together. Verity tells tales and Winsome says they’re not true, and Grace falls over something, and Papa says we all have to get out of the house and we laugh at him, and Serenity cries over the weather and Patience tells her it’s only a sunset, and Felicity always led us all as she is the oldest—am I expected to give up all my sisters because of gentlemen? I am glad I don’t have brothers!
I really feel you will have a good answer about what we should do. Your truest faithful friend, Valor Nicolet.
Lady Margaret laid down the letter. “She also drew a picture of Mrs. Wendover at the bottom. Goodness, there is quite a lot to take in.”
Yes, indeed there was. Foremost, Lady Grace liked him ever so well. He supposed he’d known it, as he liked her ever so well too. He’d been instantly struck by her and still had a clear vision of seeing her for the first time on that beach. Ever since, whenever they were in the vicinity of one another, they were iron and lodestone—inexorably drawn to one another.
Still, it was one thing to sense something and another thing to hear that it was clearly known to others and it was written about. And then, he’d hardly expected his nose to be singled out. He’d always thought it not a particularly attractive feature as it did have the slightest curve to it.
“What do you suppose she means by Lady Grace falling over something?” Lady Margaret asked. “Was there some sort of amusing accident? Though, at my age, no accident is amusing. By the by, I do appreciate you getting me up to my room last evening—that could have gone very wrong, we all know what happened to one of my footmen that last time he went headlong down the stairs. He’s dead.”
Miles tapped his chin, ignoring any reference to last night. Or the tragic fate of her footman. “The duke said something about Lady Grace having two left feet. When we dined at the inn. I did not think much of it at the time.”
“Oh dear,” Lady Margaret said, “there are those people who come into the world clumsy and never get past it. My sister in Bath, who I do not get on with and who is dead now, was a master at dropping things. If there was a decent china cup in reach, that girl would drop it. She’s dead these days, so I suppose the cups are safe.”
Miles had not the first idea of how to respond to another of Lady Margaret’s macabre reflections. Further, he’d not seen any evidence from Lady Grace of any sort of inordinate clumsiness. Even if he did, would it put him off? He did not think it would. After all, if one were to have a fault, it was about as minor a fault as he could think of.
“Well, I suppose there are worse things,” Lady Margaret said. “But I must not get ahead of myself. Lord Harraby is to collect me at two o’clock and we are to make calls. I will keep you apprised of my opinions regarding the young ladies we encounter. Do not worry, Lord Dashlend—she is out there. Is it Lady Grace? Is it another lady? It’s too soon to tell.”
“There really is no need for that, Lady Margaret,” Miles said, alarmed that she and Lord Harraby were to take their ideas to the streets.
“It is no trouble at all,” Lady Margaret said, as if she were proposing to do him a favor. She rose. “I’d best go upstairs. Meg says she has a new idea for my hair. What’s left of it, anyway. Wainwright, might you send me a tray? And a tray for Gwen too—her feet are swelling up something terrible these days. And a bit of brandy for both of us. Well! At least we are not dead.”
With that, Lady Margaret toddled from the room.
He did not have a good feeling about Lady Margaret and Lord Harraby out on the town looking into his business and trying to arrange his future.
Miles decided there was no point in brewing over it as there did not seem to be a way to stop Lady Margaret from nosing into his business. In any case, he had things to do.
Lady Grace had mentioned that the family would be taking a turn round the park that afternoon and he had some business to attend to before he would set off to coincidentally encounter them.
Miles wondered if Lady Grace knew what Lady Valor had written. Perhaps she even encouraged it? He felt exceedingly buoyed by recent events. During Fact or Fib she had mentioned his gentlemanly bearing. Now his nose was singled out as exceptional too.
He jogged up the stairs and entered his bedchamber, which was comprised of a suite of rooms. There was the main room that overlooked the back garden, then another good-sized chamber acting as a dressing room on one side, and a sitting room of sorts with a desk on the other.
