Chapter Twelve
Lord Tramondeley motionedto Valor. Lady Letitia had the count cornered on some subject and was making liberal use of her fan on his unsuspecting arms. The duke and Lord Ledderbey had gone off to a sideboard and then intended to find some chairs, as neither one of them cared for endlessly standing around.
Lord Tramondeley surreptitiously held his arm out. Valor laid her hand upon it, and they fairly tiptoed away. The lord led them toward some of the other rooms. Once out of earshot, he said, “Would it be ungentlemanly to say I wished to get away from Lady Letitia?”
“I expect so,” Valor said with a laugh.
“Well I did. I will say something worse—I do not like her and if I never saw her again I could very happily go on with my life. She’s too…everything.”
“That is very severe, my lord,” Valor said in a scolding tone. Really, she did not care, as she did not imagine her own life would be adversely affected by the absence of Lady Letitia. That was not to condemn the lady, but to only recognize that not every person suited every person. Or as Mrs. Right sometimes said, not every lid would fit every teapot.
“I think I’m too much a Cornwall man for all these delicate graces. I cannot go prancing through my life like your count.”
Your count? What did that mean? Was Lord Tramondeley jealous? It was a rather lovely prospect.
“I take no ownership of Count di Compressio,” she said.
“Good.”
Valor had to admit that gave her a thrill. He said it so forcefully too. They had just turned into a music room, lit with dim candles like every other room in Lady Jellerbey’s house. A few people occupied the room and a lady desultorily picked out keys on the pianoforte.
“Where have they gone?” Lady Letitia’s loud voice rang out.
Lord Tramondeley pulled Valor to the other side of a heavy oak cabinet. They pressed themselves against the wall.
“No, not in here,” Lady Letitia said. “Come, Count. I cannot think how our party was separated but we must find Tramondeley—he will long to hear the anecdote about my horse.”
Valor stood close to Lord Tramondeley as they hid on the other side of the cabinet. She could feel the heat of him and the scent of fresh-laundered linen. Her heart pounded over it.
Lord Tramondeley peered round the cabinet. “It’s safe. She’s gone.”
They stepped back into the open and Valor thought it really was well that the room was so dim. Anybody observing them hiding would have wondered about it. They might have found it shocking.
“Lord Tramondeley,” she said, “I really must inquire. If you are willing to hide from the lady, how did you come to invite her to your Cornwall party?”
Rather than answer, the lord just looked at her with his brows raised.
“Oh I see,” Valor said. She presumed Lady Letitia had somehow invited herself.
“Exactly,” Lord Tramondeley said. “Now, let us discover how long we can keep up this game of cat and mouse.”
And so they did. It really turned into quite the entertaining game. Lady Letitia would come one way and they slip off the other way. Lady Letitia all but interrogated some of Lady Jellerbey’s guestsregarding their location. The lady was told several times that they’d been recently seen but nobody knew what direction they went. Lady Letitia stalked the rooms like a hunter after a stag, getting more irate by the minute and beginning to blame the count for losing Lord Tramondeley. Valor at one point heard the count reply that he was not Tramondeley’s governess.
At one point, they even hid behind a pair of curtains and Lord Tramondeley had made her laugh by his hope that the duke would not set them on fire.
Finally, they had returned to the duke and Lord Ledderbey. Lady Letitia and the count came upon them and Lady Letitia gave them a proper scolding. The count just looked annoyed.
Valor and Lord Tramondeley claimed they’d just been walking from room to room and could not imagine how they’d not encountered one another.
What a perfectly smashing evening.
*
As they madetheir way home from the candlelight picnic, Weston thought back on slipping from room to room, always just out of reach of the count and Lady Letitia. He’d been bold about his comments regarding his wish to avoid Lady Letitia. Lady Valor had scolded him over it but it had been a half-hearted sort of scold.
He’d avoided mentioning he wished to avoid the count too. Fortunately, Lady Valor did not seem as if she missed his company very much. She had been a willing accomplice in their cat and mouse game.
“Well, my boy, I sang your praises to Lady Valor this evening whether you wished me to or not. I must tell you, she was exceedingly approving of it. Of you. But for the night sailing. She is convinced your luck will run out one night and that will be the end of you. She specifically mentioned the habit so I think we can conclude it has beenmuch on the lady’s mind.”
