Chapter 15
Fifteen
“It is not a proper tea unless someone threatens blackmail,” said April Roth to her sisters.
From the threshold, Eliza had a fleeting urge to flee back to her carriage. Instead, she entered, letting the click of her shoes warn the Duchess of Stone’s drawing room of her advance. They all turned at the same time, and their faces broke out into wide grins.
“You are three minutes late,” June said, “so you must forfeit any right to a neutral greeting. It’s rules.”
“I stand corrected,” Eliza replied. “Please, continue with the blackmail. I am only the guest.”
May, who had evidently appointed herself queen of the teapot, offered Eliza a cup before she even finished sitting. “We are so pleased you could come, Marchioness,” May said, and meant it. “Would you prefer the cream or the lemon?”
“Lemon,” Eliza answered, accepting the cup. “Thank you.”
April gave a dramatic sigh. “No, no, no, May. You should say ‘Eliza’ now. It is a sisterly summit, not a summit of strangers.” She turned to Eliza and stage-whispered, “She always forgets the script.”
“It’s just, you have such a dignified air, it’s difficult to adjust,” May explained, blushing to the roots of her hair. “Even though you have been family for months now.”
“You can call me whatever you like,” Eliza said.
“Dangerous offer,” June observed. She was the only one not smiling, but her deadpan was the dryest of the three. “Did you know our brother is terrified of the word ‘darling’?”
“I did not,” Eliza said.
“It’s true,” said April. “Mother called him darling once in front of the Prince Regent, and he nearly died on the spot. Went purple with horror.”
“That’s a medical condition,” said June, “not a social one.”
“Darling,” repeated Eliza, just to test the weight of it.
All three of them laughed, and the last of the formality in the room seemed to vanish in the sound.
Eliza set down her cup, already half-emptied. “I was not certain if this was a summons or a rescue mission.”
“It’s both,” May said, kneeling to poke the fire. “We hear that you are not fond of society teas, so we thought to bribe you with scones. Mrs. Sprague made the lemon ones especially for you. We threatened to weep if she did not.”
Eliza accepted a scone from April, and it was—without exaggeration—the best she had ever tasted.
“Is it true,” asked June, “that you once read every book in the Wilhampton lending library?”
“I doubt it. There were far too many pamphlets about animal husbandry.”
“Those are my favorite,” said April, grabbing two scones. “You would be amazed how many things are solved by simply not marrying first cousins.”
“Are you gossiping about my library habits?” Eliza asked.
“Always,” said May. “We are compiling a dossier. It will be published posthumously.”
June rolled her eyes. “Enough,” she said. “Eliza will think we are feral.”
“Too late,” said Eliza. “I have known worse.”
April seized the conversational scepter. “Tell us everything. About August. And about your marriage. Was it truly an arrangement, or was there a secret romance? Was there a dramatic confession? Did anyone faint?”
Eliza nearly choked on her tea. “You were all at the wedding.”
“Yes, but you were so stoic. You did not look at him once. I counted.”
“I looked at him,” Eliza said, “but only because he stepped on my train during the vows.”
May’s face broke into a grin. “That is such an August thing to do.”
“He never could dance,” June added. “Not until after Oxford and then only because the Duke threatened to write him out of the will.”
“I will tell you a secret,” April said, glancing left and right for eavesdroppers that did not exist. “He taught me to waltz the summer before my first ball. In the stables. He was so afraid I would trip and disgrace the family that he spent every afternoon practicing with me, even though he hated it. He never told anyone.”
“He is sentimental,” observed May, “but he will deny it until his dying breath.”
“It was the same when my kitten ran off,” June said, her voice softening. “He was twelve. Stayed up all night with a lamp, searching the hedges for it. When he found it, he was covered in brambles and had lost his favorite waistcoat. But he didn’t care. Not once.”
Eliza tried to imagine a twelve-year-old August, bramble-strewn and victorious. She could not.
“He is not what I expected,” Eliza said. “He is very—”
“Dramatic?” suggested May.
“Loud?” offered June.
April snorted. “Controlling?”
Eliza smiled. “Attentive,” she decided, surprising even herself. “He notices everything. And he remembers it, even if he pretends not to.”
There was a moment of pure sisterly approval. The three triplets seemed, by unspoken agreement, to accept her as one of their own.
“He is better since the wedding,” May declared. “Calmer. I think he missed having someone to look after.”
“Don’t tell him that,” urged June. “He’ll take it as a challenge and build an orphanage.”
April leaned in. “Did he tell you about the time he challenged the Viscount of Whitchurch to a duel?”
“He does not mention his heroics,” Eliza said. “I am only told of his debts and his vices.”
“He was not dueling for honor,” June said.
“He was dueling because Whitchurch insulted April’s bonnet.
Said it looked like a cabbage. So, August called him out at dawn, and then at the last minute, he switched the pistols for epees because he knew Whitchurch had a limp arm. He only wanted to terrify the man.”
“He let the Viscount win,” April confessed, “and then gave him a cabbage as a peace offering. They have been friends ever since.”
“I do not know if this is comforting,” Eliza admitted.
“It should be,” said May. “He has always been a disaster, but he is our disaster.”
“Now, he is your disaster,” June observed.
“And you are ours,” April said. “So, you must come to all the teas, even if you hate them.”
Eliza felt her guard thinning. She was unused to this sort of warmth—unconditional, reckless, and a little embarrassing.
“If you are determined to make me part of your family,” Eliza said, “then I must insist you drop the ‘Marchioness or Lady Barrington’.’It is exhausting.”
“Never again,” April promised and raised her cup. “To Eliza.”
“To Eliza,” echoed the others.
They drank, and Eliza found her cup was empty again.
May refilled it with a grin. “What else shall we discuss? Do you wish to hear all of August’s childhood secrets? Or do you want to know which member of the ton is most likely to expire of scandal this season?”
“Or,” June said, “do you wish to tell us your own secrets in return?”
The prospect should have been horrifying, but with the fire and the lemon scones and the gentle, persistent gaze of the three women, it was not.
“I have few secrets worth telling,” Eliza said.
“Untrue,” argued April. “You have the best secret of all. You married the only man in London whom Lady Wilhampton could not ensnare.”
There it was—the knife under the cake. Eliza kept her expression even, but her pulse sped.
“I was not aware Lady Wilhampton had set her sights on August,” Eliza replied.
All three sisters exchanged a look, part amusement, part caution.
“Everyone in town knew it,” May said, “but August was always too clever for her.”
“Or too distracted by himself,” June observed.
Eliza absorbed the information, tucking it into the mental ledger where she kept all the useful cruelties of the world.
“She invited me to tea yesterday,” Eliza said.
All three sisters groaned.
“She is a snake,” April warned. “Be careful.”
“She will flatter you and then try to ruin you,” May added.
“She will fail,” June declared, “but she will enjoy trying.”
“I will be on my guard,” Eliza promised.
“We are at your disposal if you wish to mount a counterattack,” April said. “We have the resources.”
“We are trained in sabotage,” May added.
“Some of us are,” June corrected. “April is trained in causing scenes, not in cleaning them up.”
April raised her glass. “I am very good at scenes.”
Eliza smiled for real this time. “If I am in need of assistance, you will be the first to know.”
They finished their tea, the conversation drifting to safer ground: books, the new exhibition at the Royal Academy, and whether or not the Prince Regent truly wore a corset under his waistcoats. (He did.)
By the end, Eliza found she was nearly sorry to leave.
As she stood to depart, April pressed a parcel of scones into her hand. “For emergencies,” she said.
May squeezed her arm. “Come again. Any time. We mean it.”
June did not smile, but she accompanied Eliza to the door and said, quietly, “He is lucky, you know. Don’t let him convince you otherwise.”
Eliza stepped out into the pale afternoon, the sound of laughter echoing behind her. She realized her shoulders had dropped an inch, her hands were not clenched, and her heart—while still bruised—felt unexpectedly light.
It was not home yet.
But it was not exile either.
August believed in the redemptive power of order, especially when the world was intent on being untidy. That afternoon, he set about reconciling the household accounts.
He drew a neat red line down the margin, double-checking the arithmetic, and nearly missed the anomaly on the second page.
There, nestled among the shillings and pounds, was an expense several orders larger than the norm, paid out not to a familiar vendor but to a name he did not recognize: Mrs. M. Fulham, Chancery Lane.
He frowned, tapped his finger against the entry, and checked the notation. The sum was more than enough to buy a year’s worth of ink and paper, and it had been paid from the household account, not Eliza’s personal purse.
He flipped two pages back and forth, searching for a memo, but found only the same stolid script repeated in the margin: “By order of the Marchioness.”
A chill, familiar and unwelcome, ran through him. He called for Mrs. Finch, who materialized in the doorway with her hands folded and a worried furrow in her brow.
“Mrs. Finch,” he said, “do you know why the house paid a sum of this size to Mrs. Fulham on Chancery Lane? I do not recall the name.”
The housekeeper’s expression did not change, but her fingers began to worry at the folds of her apron. “Mrs. Fulham is a seamstress, My Lord. Very discreet and used by some of the better families. But this was not a normal transaction if you follow.”
“I do not,” August replied.
“She came to the house, sir,” Mrs. Finch said. “Twice in the past week. The first time, she brought several parcels, and the second, she took away a crate. I was instructed to see the accounts settled and to ask no further questions.”
“By the Marchioness?”
“Yes, My Lord. Her Ladyship was most particular about handling it herself. She said it was a matter of the utmost privacy.”
August let his quill rest on the page, making a small, round stain of ink. “Did Mrs. Fulham say what she was delivering? Or taking?”
“No, My Lord. Only that the Her Ladyship was most insistent on quality and on speed.”
He pressed the heel of his hand to his brow. “Thank you, Mrs. Finch. That will be all.”
She dipped a curtsy and withdrew, the click of the door closing a shade too quickly.
August turned to the next ledger, as if the answer might be hiding in the numbers, but the more he stared, the less sense it made.
Eliza was not a woman given to excess; she did not buy hats or slippers or baubles by the dozen.
She dressed plainly, spoke plainly, and managed her own stipend with the discipline of a parson.
What, then, required a discreet seamstress, an unmarked crate, and a sum large enough to rattle the household balance?
He opened the bottom drawer of his desk, poured a small measure of brandy, and tried to imagine a scenario in which this did not end in disaster. He could not.
He set the glass down and went in search of his wife.
The drawing room was empty except for the embers in the grate.
The library was undisturbed, not a single volume out of place.
In the morning room, a half-finished letter lay on the blotter, the ink still damp.
He read the first line: “I am not certain what one is meant to write when there is no one left to receive the letter.”
He replaced it, shutting the thought away.
He circled the hallways, each room more frustratingly empty than the last. By the time he reached the main hall, Denton had appeared, as if conjured by the scent of impending crisis.
“Has the Marchioness been seen this afternoon?” August asked.
“She returned from London at half-past three, My Lord,” Denton said, “but she departed again not half an hour later. She did not request the carriage.”
August narrowed his eyes. “On foot? In this weather?”
“She left in walking dress, My Lord. Alone.”
“Did she say where she was going?”
“No, My Lord. Only that she would be back before dinner.”
August ran a hand down his face. He tried and failed to remember a single instance where his wife had ever acted in a predictable manner. “Thank you, Denton. If she returns, let me know at once.”
She is up to something, and she does not trust you to know what it is, a voice in his mind whispered.
August made it four paces down the hall before the front bell began hammering, not in the rhythm of a delivery but in the panicked summons of a disaster. He hurried back to the front hall.
Denton opened the door where a young man with his hat in hand stood. “Urgent, sir. From Wildmoore House.” His eyes found August and did not blink. “They said—” he hesitated, voice rough. “They said you must come at once. It’s the Duke.”
The words punched the air out of his lungs.