Chapter 9
Chapter
Nine
A Supper Among Friends
Ihad arranged the supper weeks ago in a fit of sociability I now deeply regretted.
The invitations had gone out when Lydia Gray was alive, when her voice still filled my drawing room with dangerous verse, when the worst thing I had to manage on a Wednesday evening was Lord Pemberton's opinions.
Now she was in the ground at Highgate, and I was standing in my dining room adjusting place cards with hands that wanted to tremble.
It was too late to cancel. The fish had been ordered, the wine decanted, and Cook had spent the better part of two days constructing a syllabub that she guarded like a state secret.
To cry off now would invite precisely the sort of speculation I wished to avoid.
So Wednesday evening found me smiling at the door, receiving guests as though the week had not changed everything.
At least, the company was familiar. Mrs. Fitzwilliam, sharp-tongued and reliable, arrived first, as was her custom.
Lady Havers followed, resplendent in violet silk.
Two more reform-minded ladies whose names appeared on various petitions and pamphlets filled the remaining seats, along with a handful of gentleman sympathizers who preferred intellectual discourse to their clubs' stale conversations.
Sir Isaac Blount, a retired magistrate with a fondness for rational argument, among them, Mr. Ellsworth, who had delivered his sanitation paper at the last salon, and Mr. Mainwaring, a solicitor, was also among the guests.
Lord Peregrine completed the party. He greeted Miriam with genuine warmth, complimented Linnet's brooch with a gesture she acknowledged with a pleased nod, and settled into his chair with the languid ease of a cat selecting a sunbeam.
While I presided over the table, Miriam managed the conversation from the other end, aptly steering away the discussion from shoals of controversy.
Linnet sat beside her, watchful and composed, her dark eyes tracking the movements of lips and the expressions on faces with her customary attentiveness.
The meal passed pleasantly enough. We spoke of parliamentary debates, of a new exhibition at the Royal Academy, of Mr. Ellsworth's ongoing crusade against inadequate drainage, not the pleasantest of subjects while the meat course was being served.
The wine was good, the syllabub a triumph, and for a brief hour I almost persuaded myself that the evening would pass without incident.
Then the ladies withdrew, and I lost control of the conversation entirely.
We had scarcely settled ourselves in the drawing room—tea distributed, coffee poured, the fire stirred to brightness—when Lady Havers struck.
"Tragic business about Miss Gray," she said, arranging herself on the settee with the deliberate comfort of a woman preparing to hold court. "The inquest returned a verdict of misadventure, I understand. Though I confess, I have my doubts."
Mrs. Fitzwilliam's cup paused halfway to her lips. Miriam's needle stopped mid-stitch.
"She was planning to publish that poem, after all," Lady Havers continued, her tone perfectly calibrated between sympathy and insinuation.
"The one she read at your last salon, Lady Larkspur.
Naming names—or near enough—would be hazardous to one's health, I should imagine.
" She let the words settle, then added, with an air of innocent enquiry, "Which does raise the question.
Was she truly so careless as to step in front of a carriage? Or was she pushed?"
"She always struck me as remarkably level-headed," one of the reform-minded ladies said. "I cannot quite see her taking a false step."
"My thoughts precisely," Lady Havers said, with the satisfaction of a woman whose hook had found its fish. "And then there is the matter of what happened at Everthorne Manor."
"Heavens, Lady Havers." Mrs. Fitzwilliam set down her cup with a decisive click. "That was over a decade ago. What on earth could it possibly have to do with the present?"
"Well." Lady Havers smoothed her skirts. "A little bird told me that the Devil of Everthorne was present at both the inquest and the burial." She turned her gaze upon me, bright and expectant. "You were there, Lady Larkspur. Did he, in fact, attend?"
Every eye in the room followed hers to me. Their attention felt like a stone upon my shoulder.
"He did," I said evenly. "Miss Gray served as companion to his grandmother for several years. It would have been strange had he not come."
"Well, there you are." Lady Havers spread her hands as though the case were already made.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “A funeral attended by a man who knew the deceased hardly constitutes evidence of anything beyond common decency."
Lady Havers was not so easily deterred. "Perhaps. But consider the circumstances. He comes to London after having inherited the title—a title, I might add, that carries a good deal of scandal attached to it. And within weeks, Lydia Gray is dead."
"What exactly are you implying?" Mrs. Fitzwilliam's voice had acquired the dangerous edge that seasoned members of my salon knew to respect.
"I would not like to say," Lady Havers replied, which was, of course, precisely her way of saying it. "But the facts do speak for themselves. A young woman was assaulted at Everthorne Manor, and he took the blame. Banished to the army, from what I hear."
"He fought in the Crimea," Miriam said quietly, looking up from her stitching. It was unusual for her to enter such discussions, and the room took notice. "He was awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery. That does not quite square with a man who assaults young women."
"Perhaps the army changed him," Lady Havers conceded, though her tone suggested she considered this unlikely.
"Or perhaps," Mrs. Fitzwilliam said, "someone else was to blame."
A silence fell—the kind that descends when a truth no one wishes to examine has been laid upon the table.
"The young woman in question never named her abuser," Mrs. Fitzwilliam continued, her gaze level.
"She was married off rather quickly, as I recall, and withdrew from society altogether.
If Everthorne had truly been responsible, one might expect an accusation.
Instead, there was silence—the sort of silence that is purchased, not freely given. "
Lady Havers opened her mouth, then closed it again. For once, she appeared to be calculating whether further pursuit was worth the cost.
"We are speaking of a man's reputation," Miriam said, her needle resuming its steady rhythm. "Reputations, once destroyed, are not easily rebuilt. I should think we, of all people, would understand the injustice of condemning someone on the strength of drawing-room whispers."
The rebuke was gentle, but it landed. Several of the ladies shifted uncomfortably. In a room full of women who knew what it meant to have their characters questioned by society, the point was difficult to dismiss.
Lady Havers, however, was made of sterner stuff. "I merely observe," she said, lifting her chin, "that where there is smoke, there is generally fire."
"And I observe," Mrs. Fitzwilliam replied, "that smoke is also produced by people who enjoy setting things alight."
A ripple of uneasy laughter broke the tension. Lady Havers smiled thinly and reached for her teacup, signaling a temporary retreat.
I said nothing. I could not defend Everthorne with any conviction—I had met him once, briefly, over a grave, and I did not yet know whether his grief was genuine or calculated.
But neither could I join the attack. Something in his manner at Highgate had struck me as authentic—the rawness of a man standing before an obligation he could not discharge.
Linnet caught my eye from across the room. She had been watching the exchange with the fierce concentration she brought to everything, reading lips and expressions with equal fluency. Now she signed, small and quick so that only I could see, “They are afraid.”
She was right. Fear wore many masks. When something dreadful happened, people often sought refuge in gossip, as though discussing a thing made it less capable of touching them.
I lifted my teacup and changed the subject to the Royal Academy's spring exhibition, and the evening limped onward. But beneath the chatter and the clink of porcelain, Lady Havers's words hung in the air like smoke.
The gentlemen soon joined us. Apparently, the port had palled beside the prospect of intellectual conversation in the drawing room. Little did they know what they were walking into.
Sir Isaac Blount entered first, settling into the chair nearest Mrs. Fitzwilliam with the ease of long acquaintance.
Behind him came Mr. Ellsworth and Mr. Mainwaring.
Peregrine drifted in last, pausing in the doorway long enough to survey the room with the practiced eye of a man assessing whether the drawing room had improved or deteriorated since the ladies had claimed it.
"The atmosphere in here is rather charged," he murmured, accepting a cup of coffee from the tray. "I do hope we haven't missed anything edifying."
Lady Havers pounced before they had fairly seated themselves.
“Mr. Mainwaring, what a fortunate coincidence. We were just discussing the unfortunate situation that occurred at Everthorne Manor some years ago." She tilted her head with predatory sweetness. "You were there, were you not?"
Mainwaring's smile faltered. "I beg your pardon?"
"The house party. The young lady who was—" She let the sentence trail off with an eloquent pause. "Well. You take my meaning."
"I was there, yes," he said cautiously. "Along with dozens of others."
"As was half the county, if memory serves," Peregrine said, brushing a speck of non-existent dust from his trousers. "House parties in those days were rather indiscriminate affairs. One practically tripped over earls in the corridors."
But Lady Havers was not about to be deterred. “Then you must have a view on the matter, Mainwaring. Do share."