“No doubt,” the dowager said. “I noticed you scarpered off early today and did not return. I had to go through your calendar to find out where you’d be.”
“My calendar is private.”
“Then you should have hid it better,” the dowager said.
This struck the duke as rather hilarious and they clinked their glasses together.
Leland sighed. His grandmother was enough to handle in the countryside, but in Town she was far more difficult. With the duke’sinfluence, she was becoming impossible.
“Your Grace, Dowager,” he said, “may I present Lady Edith. I believe you already know Lord Landry.”
“Ah yes, we know Landry,” the duke said, laughing. “Poor fellow always looks shook up.”
“I am intending to change that, Your Grace,” Lady Edith said.
The duke seemed a bit startled to hear it, as they all were. But for Landry, who seemed delighted.
“Lady Edith really is doing it too,” Landry said. “If I say, ‘I do not know,’ she says ‘think about Landry, you probably do know.’”
It seemed there was some sort of budding romance between Landry and Lady Edith and it was just as bizarre as one might imagine from the combination of those two people. Lady Edith was forceful and it appeared that Landry was happy to be forced.
Lady Jellerbey, an energetic lady in general, hurried into the room looking flushed. “Everyone, Lady Lucinda has just had the most marvelous idea. We are to have a Longways country dance running right down the corridor between my rooms. One of my footmen is a fiddler and has gone to fetch his instrument. Hurry now, it will be great fun.”
“What say you, Dowager?” the duke said.
“I suppose I am still light enough on my feet,” the dowager said.
Leland quietly groaned. It would be a miracle if shestayedon her feet. Nevertheless, he could not be unhappy with this development for himself. He would take Lady Winsome away from all these interlopers.
He turned. “Lady Winsome?”
He was unceremoniously pushed aside. St. John said, “Lady Winsome, you did promise me a dance.”
She looked surprised to hear it, but St. John led her away before she could absolutely refuse.
“Well, it looks like you are the odd man out, Lord Manderbey,”Lady Edith said.
He stared at her, as answering her with his opinion of the events of the last minute would be unconscionably rude.
She held her arm out to Lord Landry and led him toward the corridor. Leland poured himself a large glass of claret. St. John was on the hunt, though there might be two motives for what he was doing. He might be after Lady Winsome’s dowry, or he might have noted Leland’s interest in the lady and was attempting to drum up trouble. The trouble would have one goal—get more money out of him for a promise to back away.
Either way, Lady Winsome should be protected from his rogue cousin. Perhaps he would pay St. John a visit on the subject.
*
Mrs. Right tookadvantage of the quiet of the house. Valor was long abed, with one of the housemaids sitting in her room to assure her of her safety from the mysterious Mr. Wicket. The duke and Winsome were still out. She’d cleared out the servants’ hall early and she’d set the half of a poundcake leftover from dinner on the counter. She was out of patience with that butler forever jumping out from behind doorframes and frightening her staff witless. She was a lioness on the hunt and the poundcake was her bait to lure him in. She was determined to get her claws into her quarry.
She hid in the shadows, waiting.
At first, all was silence. Eventually, her feet began to hurt and she began to think how pleasant it would be to put them up and sip a glass of sherry. She was near giving up for the night, but then, the subtlest of sounds emerged. A low and slow creak. Then a pause. Then another creak. Her prey approached.
She stayed very still as Mr. Wicket took his time assuring himself that the servants’ hall was emptied of people for the night.
Then, convinced he was alone, he slithered forward through the gloom in that creepy way that was all his own.
He might be mysterious and a spy for the crown, but he went for the poundcake like every other man in England would. As he reached for it, Mrs. Right swung the meat cleaver in her hand down into the wood of the table, just inches from his hand.
She was satisfied to hear the shriek that emanated from that individual. “Mr. Wicket,” she said in her most threatening tone.
