“At her ownconvenience?” Lady Marchfield asked, as if the idea that a housekeeper was to be afforded any convenience whatsoever was akin to blasphemy.
“That’s right, at her convenience,” the duke said, “slow to the mark but you’re finally catching on.”
Verity and Winsome had tiptoed to chairs and sat silently down, not particularly wishing to attract their aunt’s notice. Valor had picked up Sir Galahad and very sensibly left.
“If I had not intervened,” Lady Marchfield said, “Mr. Klonsume might have caused a difficulty with the queen! He might have turned up to Buckingham House with this ridiculous story! How was he to know any better? Oh, but I unraveled it as soon as I saw that letter. It was on your stationery with your crest. The very idea that your housekeeper would have the temerity to take your stationery and commit a forgery!”
At that moment, Mrs. Right reappeared, carrying a tea tray. She set it down in front of the duke as if she had no notion why Lady Marchfield had arrived or that anything at all was amiss.
“Admit it, you scandalous woman,” Lady Marchfield said, pointing at Mrs. Right. “Admit it all. At once.”
“Admit what, your ladyship?” Mrs. Right asked.
“Admit how Mr. Klonsume came to receive a letter telling him he was to be knighted. That’s what.”
The duke snorted. Verity slapped her hand over her mouth to stop from laughing. Mr. Klonsume thought he was to be knighted?
“Oh yes, I did see that letter,” Mrs. Right said. “Mr. Klonsume insisted I read it. I was very surprised by its contents, I can tell you. A knighthood, and I had never even heard of the Order of Owen.”
“There is no Order of Owen, as you well know,” Lady Marchfield said darkly. “You arranged all this. You sent him to The Albany, to Lord Charles’ set, I understand. You left the letter directing him to pray all night. You left him those ridiculous clothes from the distant past, replete with stockings and a frock coat. Oh, and a patch and a wig, let us not forget that! And then you sent him to my house in some get-up of a carriage flying flags so that I might escort him to St. James for the ceremony and then on to Buckingham for the reception!”
Verity could see very well that with every word, her father was becoming more and more amused. When the idea of a flag-flying carriage depositing a ridiculously outfitted Mr. Klonsume was relayed, he lost all hope of controlling himself.
The duke heaved with laughter. Mrs. Right said, “Gracious, how is one lowly housekeeper to do all of that?”
Lady Marchfield ignored her brother’s hysteria. “One lowly housekeeper can do all that because one lowly housekeeper is employed by the most embarrassing duke that England has ever known,” she said.
The duke took a breath from his heaving laughter. “Well, Klondike’s your problem now. Or the Order of Owen’s problem—I don’t much care. But for entertainment purposes, what do you plan on doing with the fellow?”
Lady Marchfield glared at the duke. “I have had no choice but to buy him passage on the first boat back to America. I’ve had to pay for a private berth and supply him with funds to resettle himself. He’s got it into his head that even though there is to be no ceremony, he has taken on the spirit of a knighted individual and cannot abide steerage. He must be permitted to live as a Sir. I was forced to it, as he cannot stay here. He made threats about approaching the patronesses to be admitted to Almack’s! Furthermore, that carriage and his absurd clothes made a positive scene on my square—I still have not come up with a way to explain it and Iwillbe asked.”
“Klondike returns to New York first class,” the duke said, chuckling.
“Perhaps someone should warn New York?” Mrs. Right asked, her tone all full of innocence.
“Mark me, Roland, your disavowment of any sort of regularity will catch up to you and my nieces sooner or later. At the rate you are going, I imagine it will be sooner.” With that, Lady Marchfield steamed out of the house.
Verity would never have guessed that Mrs. Right had got Mr. Klonsume out of the house with a ruse about a knighthood. She really was so clever.
