Page 94 of The Siren of Sussex

“And more black. Mama claims that mourning clothes help to keep her close to the spirit world. And she’s sporting all of her very best memento mori tonight—a jet brooch made with a piece of my father’s hair, an onyx locket containing a postmortem portrait of my deceased aunt, and a black-lacquered hairpin, said to be formed from the finger bone of a sixteenth-century seer.”

Evelyn recoiled. “A human bone?”

“Oh yes. It’s all ridiculously gruesome. But Mama is committed to enacting her rituals.”

“How committed?” Evelyn wondered. “Will you be permitted to dance?”

They passed through first one luxurious antechamber and then another. Wall sconces lined the way, gas jets illuminating lush, silk-papered walls covered edge to edge in heavily framed oil paintings of sleek horses, palatial country houses, and golden-haired Deveril ancestors.

“For any other lady dressed as I am, dancing would be considered dangerously eccentric,” Anne said. “Indeed, were we truly in mourning, we’d cancel the ball altogether. But that’s a bridge too far for my mother. After all, what’s the fun of a performance without an audience?”

Evelyn detected an odd undercurrent in Anne’s airy tone. “Does it make things very difficult for you?”

“That depends on your view of difficulty. I’m not poor, and I’m not suffering from illness or infirmity.” Anne’s mouth tilted in a smile. “I confess, my situation is rather trying at times, but one must have a sense of humor about these things.”

“I expect you’re right.”

“I am right. And besides, I’m not alone. Stella, Julia, and I have all faced obstacles during our seasons.” Anne pulled Evelyn along. “Let us go and find them.”

The other ladies weren’t in the next room they passed through. And they weren’t in the rapidly filling ballroom, with its painted domed ceiling, trio of massive chandeliers, and orchestra members tuning their instruments on the dais.

Evelyn caught the barest glimpse of grandiosity—of ladies in shimmering full-skirted gowns and gentlemen in black-and-white eveningwear—before Anne drew her to the closed doors of a room at the back of the house.

“My late father’s study,” she said.

It was there they found Stella and Julia, seated beside each other on a leather-upholstered sofa. Julia was drinking from a cut-crystal glass held in her gloved hands.

“Don’t sip it like a hummingbird,” Stella advised. “Drink it all down in one go, like the vile medicine it is.”

“Oh, if I must.” Squeezing her eyes shut, Julia tipped back the glass and downed the remaining contents in one noisy gulp. She’d no sooner swallowed than she began coughing in great racking heaves. “Ugh! It’s awful.”

“What in the world are you doing?” Anne strode purposefully into the room, Evelyn following after her. “That’s not my mother’s scotch?”

“It’s whatever was in that decanter on the drinks table,” Stella said. “An amber-gold liquid. I suppose it may have been scotch.”

“Does scotch burn like fire?” Julia asked, her eyes watering.

“All spirits do.” Anne plucked the glass from Julia’s hands and returned it to the mahogany table that held the silver drinks tray. “I thought you’d gone to the ballroom?”

“We were in the ballroom,” Stella said.

Julia coughed again. “It’s my fault. One minute I was standing with the other wallflowers, and the next there was a weight in my chest so heavy I couldn’t breathe.”

“Oh dear.” Anne’s expression softened. “You became anxious, did you?”

“It was worse this time,” Julia said.

“Much worse,” Stella agreed. “A gentleman approached her.”

Anne gave Julia an alert look. “What gentleman?”

“He was tall and stern, with black hair and a weatherworn countenance.” Julia moistened her lips. “A soldier, I think. He had the most terrible scar across his face.”

“Captain Blunt?” Anne’s mouth nearly fell open.

“He was in company with Lord Ridgeway,” Stella said. “His lordship was attempting to make an introduction. He hadn’t finished yet when Julia had her episode.”

“Captain Blunt?” Anne repeated. “Hero of the Crimea?”