Chapter 1
“Tell me what is amiss.” Lady Violet Avery hooked her arm around her friend’s elbow and pulled the other girl close. “I can tell something is bothering you.”
“You know me well.” Mabel Bunting’s face seemed even smaller and paler than usual as she shook her head and answered in a low voice, “But we cannot speak yet. Not until we are in the garden.”
Violet nodded and hurried her lifelong best friend down the elegant, pebbled drive of her parents’ estate, away from the prying ears of servants and family alike, and into the secluded shrubbery of their winding garden.
It was a cool, bright morning, the kind that made one feel all was well with the world. At least, Violet would have felt that way if she had not glimpsed the panic in Mabel’s brown eyes.
“Here?” She slowed as they dipped into the interior of the arbor, beneath a trellis smothered in ivy.
Mabel pulled her arm free of Violet’s and turned to face her, clutching her fingers together. “A most dreadful thing has happened, but you mustn’t tell a soul. It will be terrible indeed if someone were to overhear us, or if you were to let such a thing slip in conversation…”
“We are quite alone,” Violet assured her. “And you know my character enough to trust my confidence. Speak freely.”
“Where to begin?” Mabel began pacing the small space beneath the trellis, her hands now fluttering anxiously like butterflies unsure how to take flight. “You know my dear cousin, Julia? I believe you met at our garden party a few years ago.”
“Yes,” Violet assured her. “A sweet girl—I believe we ran into one another at a salon in London once as well. She is not terribly verbose but seems a gentle enough spirit.”
“She is gentle—almost too gentle for her own good. One feels she will shatter at the slightest touch.” Mabel’s eyes filled with tears. “And she will certainly shatter after this sordid affair comes to light. Oh, friend!”
She stopped her pacing and sank down onto a narrow stone bench in a pool of white muslin, her head in her hands and her shoulders shaking.
Violet hesitated a moment and then joined her friend, slipping an arm around Mabel’s shoulders. She said quietly and calmly, “I can see you’re upset, but you must calm yourself, dear one. Tell me everything that happened, from the beginning, and we will find a solution together.”
Mabel raised her tear-filled eyes. “You say that like you actually believe it. But I don’t see a way out.”
“Nonsense. There is always a way out.” Violet smiled in encouragement. “Go on, then. From the beginning.”
“Julia and a … a young man … they struck up a correspondence during the Season. Of a romantic nature.” Mabel stumbled over the words. “It is quite secret and has been going on for months without either of their parents’ knowledge.”
“Is he an unsuitable match?” Violet asked softly.
She did not share the ton’s disapproval of unconventional matches, but she knew how proper society worked after 20 years on this earth as the daughter of the Earl of Crestwood, and she knew that for those that did not play the game, censure was guaranteed.
“No! Yes … It’s complicated.” Mabel bit her lip. “He is of the aristocracy, I assure you—a proper gentleman with lands and title …”
“But?”
“But the two families are at odds and have been for generations. Julia’s father had bad dealings with this young man’s grandfather.
I don’t know the details, but both men left feeling cheated, and there was even a threat of a duel.
” Mabel shook her head. “Julia pleaded with them to consider the match when she first fell for the gentleman in question, but they refused adamantly.”
“And so she went behind their back.” Violet nodded. “I am beginning to see the reason for secret correspondence.”
“She had no choice,” Mabel rushed on. “I thought you, of all people, would understand. In the same situation, I have no doubt your spirit would rise above convention.”
“Happily, I do not expect ever to face such a situation.” Violet sighed. “You know my parents well—do they seem like the sort of people who would meddle in my love life, or hold grudges that rot for eternity and imprison future generations?”
Mabel shook her head wryly. “But dear Violet, you must admit that not all people are as fortunate as you. Your parents spoiled you dreadfully, and had you a more obnoxious temperament, you would have turned out quite insufferable.”
Violet smiled slightly. “But we have strayed from the topic at hand. Is it simply your cousin’s secret correspondence that has you in such a state?”
“Would that it were,” Mabel sighed. “You see, they couldn’t send such correspondence in the post for fear they would be discovered. They needed a go-between to pass notes back and forth.”
Now, Violet understood. “You. You offered to assist them.”
“I wanted to help them,” she said desperately.
“And I thought there was no harm in it. But I was wrong. The gentleman has been compiling a book of poetry for Julia and gave it to me with a love note. The note is coded, but neither of them is particularly cunning. I do not think it would take long for a sharp mind to understand the contents of the letter.”
“Why do you speak of code?” Violet asked. “Was the letter intercepted?”
Mabel’s eyes filled with tears again. “By Colette.”
For the first time, the gravity of the situation fell fully on Violet. Colette had moved in her same circle for years, a woman of good connections in London society who was only a few years older than Violet and Mabel.
Unfortunately, Colette’s good family standing was not enough to cover for her bitter and gossiping nature. She was a pretty enough girl by the ton’s standards, but she schemed constantly for power, and within the ton, power lay primarily in information—scandalous information.
Colette collected it and distributed it without care or caution.
“How in the world did Colette get her hands on such personal information?”
“She must have seen me put it in my reticule at the dance, and before Julia arrived, I ducked into the powder room to freshen up. She followed me in and chatted for a short time. I didn’t suspect anything until I tried to deliver the letter and book of poetry later that night.
It was missing.” Mabel began to wring her hands again.
“I didn’t have long to wonder—Colette called on me early the next morning and told me she held both objects and threatened to expose the entire affair if I didn’t give her what she wanted. ”
“What was that?”
“Arthur. She wants to court Arthur.”
Arthur was Mabel’s older brother, a sweet young man with a peaceful nature and good prospects. A woman like Colette would eat him alive and spit him out.
“You can’t force something like that to happen, even if you wanted to.” Violet sat back, her brain racing. “I won’t let her get away with this.”
“We may not have a choice.” Mabel caught her breath.
“She expects an answer from me tomorrow at Lady Sinclair’s masquerade ball.
If I can convince Arthur to seek her out at that ball, she will return the letter and the book, but she says it must be convincing, and I don’t see how to bring that about without telling Arthur everything.
He is loyal to Julia’s parents, and if I tell him about the book, the secret will be out either way. ”
“I do not think Arthur needs to be involved,” Violet assured her, an idea taking place in her mind. “I have a thought—a way to trick Colette the same way she tricked you.”
For the first time that day, a twinkle came into Mabel’s eyes. “Your plans have a way of backfiring, dear friend. Remember when you devised a genius way to avoid your embroidery lessons? It was fairly unsuccessful if I recall.”
“Yes,” Violet allowed with an answering grin. “It turns out that pretending one’s wrists are both broken can only get you so far. Embroidery lessons were avoided, but all the fun mathematical equations were also removed from our lesson plan.”
“You were the only child who enjoyed equations.” Mabel rolled her eyes.
“But I was a child,” Violet pointed out. “And now I am a woman of twenty years who has survived her first Season in the ton. My plans have improved considerably since I was seven years of age.”
“Tell me everything,” Mabel said briskly, crossing her hands and looking hopeful for the first time all morning.
***
Plotting complete, the girls wound their way out of the garden with lighter hearts. They climbed the stairs to Violet’s room to see the gown and mask her maid had laid out for tomorrow’s event, and Mabel nodded with approval.
“A swan is a good choice,” she said simply. “You’ve lovely auburn hair, Vi. White always looks lovely with it.”
“Thank you,” Violet acknowledged, pushing the soft muslin aside and sitting on the exposed settee. “I’m glad it will be a masked ball, at least. Perhaps the disguise will help me avoid the ardent Lord Holden.”
“Did he speak to you last week, as you suspected?” Mabel asked.
“Proposed, you mean.” Violet sighed. “He did. I knew it was coming for weeks. He was so clear with my father about his attentions and would not take a single hint that I dropped for him. Perhaps I should have been more direct …”
“Were you direct in your refusal?”
“In that, at least, I was forthright.” Violet remembered the moment as though it were unfolding before her now in the room, distasteful and unpleasant.
She saw the tall, narrow man with his seedy dark eyes and long sideburns as he professed his undying love for her person.
“He told me that he wanted to marry me from the moment he saw me, and that we would have a lucrative future together.”
“Lucrative. How romantic.” Mabel rolled her eyes.
“His sincerity was somewhat in question since his attentions were, until a few weeks ago, entirely engaged with a young heiress in America,” Violet said dryly.
“She died, poor thing, at sea on the way to their nuptials, and he abandoned the New World as quickly as he had previously embraced it. Suddenly, he is fawning over me—or, over my father, as it were—and I can only imagine my fortune is a good replacement for hers.”
“So you turned him down.”
“I told him I did not think he would make me happy, nor I him. I thanked him for his kind attentions and showed him to the door.” Violet shrugged.
“It was all fairly painless. He seemed surprised, I will admit, and perhaps a little ruffled, but he held his emotions in check as far as I was concerned. My fear is that we will meet again in public, and time will have sown some bitterness.”
“Well, I for one think you did the right thing,” Mabel said. “There was something very unlikeable about the gentleman. You deserve much better. I shall keep my eyes peeled at Lady Sinclair’s for a more worthy chap to sweep you off your feet.”
“Nonsense.” Violet laughed. “I have no desire to be swept anywhere. I do not wish to marry this Season, any more than I did last season. I am young yet, whatever the ton says, and I would like to engage in a few enjoyable evenings without the threat of forever romance hanging over me like Damocles’ sword. ”
“Some people don’t see romance as a deadly weapon,” Mabel pointed out. “I, for one, would like to fall hopelessly in love and marry as soon as I possibly can. My life will be better after marriage—that’s what everyone says. Why would I put off ‘better’ another day?”
“I am happy with my life as it is,” Violet said.
She would not say out loud what she was thinking, for fear it would wound her dearest friend.
Perhaps marriage is a cage, not freedom, after all.
She was happy and at peace with her family and her life.
She had no need of a cage. “And this evening, of all evenings, we ought to be focused on the task at hand. Romance can wait in the wings while we flirt with danger and intrigue.” She widened her eyes and lowered her voice as though telling a ghost story.
Mabel giggled and stood up, fluttering an imaginary fan and pretending shyness. “No, romance. Don’t linger there in the shadows. Come out and woo me.”
Violet snorted and stood up, squaring her shoulders and adopting a deep voice. “Dear Miss Bunting, may I cut in on your dance? I saw you across the room and was simply captivated by your every word and action. I will not rest until I can spin you around the room in some dance or other.”
Mabel simpered melodramatically. “Oh, sir, do tell me your name. I have never seen your like.”
“I am Lord … Handsome.” Violet hid another snort. “I have gobs of wealth and a very pretty pony. Is that enough to win your heart?”
“Only if you love me eternally and write me terrible poetry,” Mabel sighed.
Violet seized her hands and began whirling around the room in a mad dash. “No poetry, I fear,” she cried. “You must content yourself with the poetry of my feet upon the ballroom floor!”
The girls fell to the rug in fits of giggles, the imaginary world fading away as they did so.
“Yes,” Mabel sighed. “That is just what I imagine.”
But Violet was not imagining any such thing. Her mind was elsewhere, wrapped around the steps of their little plan, the intrigue of a love note in the wrong hands, and her vision of a masquerade ball with a mystery attached.