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Her sister dropped the letter in her lap. “Yes, it’s the same Mrs Compton your nephew was visiting when he fell from her windowsill! And Mrs Brice has even more details if you’d like to hear them.” She stopped when she caught Fanny’s warning look for Lady Indigo was in the midst of such severe palpitations that Fanny feared her heart might give out on her.
“Antoinette, where are your smelling salts?” she entreated her sister, but Lady Indigo waved away the suggestion, saying, “Thanks to that scheming jezebel my nephew is dead. What has the evil woman got up to this time? Whose husband has she cuckolded now? Her husband was going to divorce her but then didn’t! Tell me all the details!”
Another rapping of the cane upon the floorboards precipitated Antoinette to answer with more detail than she might otherwise.
Though perhaps she’d have answered with such detail, in any case.
“Mrs Compton’s husband was going to divorce her when he learned she was going to have a child, and he believed the...er...timing indicated the father was, in fact, his arch enemy,” said Antoinette, referring to the letter once more.
“Who was his arch enemy?” Fanny asked.
“Sir Redding to whom he’d lost a great fortune some years earlier, then fought a duel, causing him to suffer a terrible disfigurement.”
“And why would Mr Compton think Sir Redding was the father of Mrs Compton’s child?” asked Lady Indigo.
“Because Mr Compton found Sir Redding in his wife’s bedchamber.”
Lady Indigo drew in a labored breath as she shifted her feet and sucked on her gums. “Sir Redding made a lucky escape! He got out of Mrs Compton’s bedchamber, alive. Unlike Theophilus!”
Fanny tried to puzzle it out while offering Lady Indigo the required sympathy. “The gossip sheets were full of the scandal regarding her affair with Sir Redding, but then it died down until, of course, the gossip sheets were full of the scandal involving Sebastian Wells.”
“Indeed
, they were!” Antoinette agreed. “Possibly unfairly, Mrs Brice writes,” she added, tapping the letter on her lap. “For she says here that Mrs Compton was heard confessing to having lured Mr Wells into her bedchamber for the single purpose of trying to allay her husband’s ire by claiming Sebastian was the father.”
“Poor Sebastian,” Fanny said on a sigh. “Not that she could have got away with it when the timing would have revealed the truth, regardless.”
“Yes, poor Sebastian,” said Antoinette. “I think she may have hoped Sebastian would have championed her and provided support if Mr Compton had thrown her out.” She sighed. “It would appear that Sebastian never found the dark-haired beauty he went in search of the day after Dorothea’s funeral.”
“No,” agreed Fanny. “He just found trouble at the hands of Mrs Compton, who used him as a scapegoat.”
“Indeed, she did!” Antoinette’s excitement grew as she scanned the few lines once more. “Why, Mrs Compton must have been more than three months gone when she and her friend, Lady Banks, set their trap. And there was the poor fellow, so recently returned from the Continent, knowing nothing of the reputation of these two wicked ladies.” She clicked her tongue. “He’s such a kind man, isn’t he, Fanny? But to his detriment, it would appear. Lady Banks petitioned him to sell some of her jewelry so she could pay a debt without her husband knowing. Three men, who knew she was not to be trusted, had already refused. But Sebastian fell victim to her tears and, unfortunately, was discovered in Lady Banks’s bedchamber.”
“He sounds more like a fool, if you ask me!” said Lady Indigo.
“Well, Lady Banks was holding a soiree with Mrs Compton and some other friends when her husband was supposedly away, and she told Sebastian she couldn’t prize the safe from beneath the floorboard and asked him if he would go up and help her,” said Antoinette. “I’ve asked gentlemen to do such favors for me, and I don’t consider them fools.”
“No, I’m sure you’re right, Antoinette,” said Fanny.
“Besides, Sebastian had just returned from the Continent, and Mrs Compton led him to believe she was a widow,” Antoinette went on. “What was that? Did you say something, Venetia?”
Fanny glanced at Venetia whose needlework, she noticed, was on the floor at her feet. “You look a little heated, Venetia. Are you well?” she asked, her attention diverted by the sound of a departing carriage. “Well, there he goes now, poor fellow,” she said, glancing toward the window. “He’ll be enormously relieved that there can be no doubt Mrs Compton’s child is not his.”
“Such a shame our matchmaking didn’t fall on fertile ground this time,” said Antoinette. “I was so sure he and Miss Reeves made a good match, but you were right, Fanny, though I hate to say it. Lord Yarrowby probably will make her the better husband. She looked positively radiant when her father announced their betrothal last night. Did you say something, Venetia?”
To Fanny’s surprise, Venetia was gripping her chair in some agitation. The girl also seemed to have trouble formulating her sentence before she finally got the words out. “Who did you say Miss Reeves is going to marry?”
“Lord Yarrowby. I thought everyone had heard the news. Her father announced it last— Goodness!”
It was an exclamation echoed by all three remaining ladies as they watched Venetia rise in such haste that her chair toppled to the ground.
Even more surprising was that she made no attempt to right it.
And that she was running.
Yes, running across the enormous Aubusson carpet toward the door.
“Venetia!” exclaimed Lady Indigo, rapping her stick on the ground. “Where are you going? Come back this moment!”
