Chapter Twenty One #2
“I wouldn’t dream of asking more of you than you have already done,” Rose said. “Especially not given Henry’s poor behavior of late.”
“I promise you, I am not so petty that I would refuse you my assistance because of your son’s actions,” Grace assured her.
“You are not responsible for them, and I would not punish you on account of them. It’s just that Mr. Marsden knows well enough that he’s been burgled already, and I am certain he must suspect that I was involved.
” He simply hadn’t been able to prove it in any way that would have justified itself to an outside party.
“He has got a passenger manifest,” she said, “that proves your husband was still aboard a ship on the date of your marriage. It is the one thing—the only thing—that can elevate him to an earldom. And he has got a mountain of debts in need of repayment, besides. He will do anything he must to protect that proof until he can make his case.”
“What would you do?” Rose whispered. “In his position, I mean to say.”
“I would have my house locked up tighter than the Bank of England,” Grace said.
“Likely have the house watched by hired men to ensure that no one unknown to me made it anywhere near, and keep the evidence near to my person at all times. Either directly on my person, or within a strongbox, since I would already be aware that a locked drawer in my desk has proved insufficient protection against theft. So you see, all of my skills, such as they are, would avail me nothing. I would never make it anywhere near the house without being caught.” Grace sighed.
“He would be a fool not to have fortified his defenses—and whatever else he is, Mr. Marsden is not a fool.”
“No,” Rose sighed. “Just a cad.”
Grace squeezed her hand. “You can do better than that,” she said. “I’ll teach you some proper foul words.”
Rose startled. “Will I need them, do you think?”
For her upcoming life as a ruined and scandalous former countess, Grace supposed she meant to say.
“No—but they are quite fun to use in the right company.” She patted Rose’s hand gently.
“As it happens, I quite agree with you about Alicia. She is a lovely woman, and so very fond of you all.” She paused, took Rose’s hands in hers.
“Don’t give up hope just yet,” she said.
“It is true that I have reached the limits of what I can do, myself. But there is still Alicia.”
And Alicia, she expected, would prove invaluable.
∞∞∞
“Mow.”
Grace pressed her fingertips to the bridge of her nose and sighed at the plaintive, warbling moan. In the drawing room window, Tansy had thrown herself onto her back, flopping about dramatically like an actor in the midst of a death scene gone farcical.
“Good lord,” Mercy said, blinking. “Whatever is the matter with her?”
“Same as always. She wants to visit Lord Lockhart’s garden,” Grace sighed. “I’m afraid she’s grown rather accustomed to having her own way.”
“And whose fault is that?” Felicity asked, with an elegant arch of one brow.
Grace grappled for one of the small, embroidered pillows that sat at either end of the couch and cast it across the room at Felicity’s head.
“As though you weren’t just as bad,” she said with a laugh as Felicity ducked and the pillow sailed straight through the air to pop against the far wall.
“I’ve lost count of how many times I caught you attempting to bribe her to like you with bits of roast chicken. ”
“For all the good it has ever done me,” Felicity muttered over her cup of tea.
“Mooooow.”
“Tansy, for God’s sake!” Grace grumbled. “You’re confined to the house, not dying.”
“She’s giving a rather passable impression of it,” Charity said dryly. “The poor thing seems just devastated. Do you suppose we ought to plant some catmint of our own?”
“It’d take months to grow to size,” Grace said. And she wasn’t entirely convinced it was only the catmint which Tansy missed so desperately. Somehow, Tansy had developed a fondness for Henry. And she thought he had done the same.
“Mow,” Tansy said mournfully, rather like Grace imagined a recently-bereaved widow might do.
She cast a sorrowful glance at Grace as she resigned herself to confinement, laying her chin upon her paws with a morose sigh far too large for a creature of her size.
Even if that size happened to be rather substantial, for a cat.
“Do you suppose we ought to leave her to her sulking?” Mercy asked.
“I can’t imagine it would do much good,” Grace said. “Tansy prefers an audience for her theatrics. She’d pick one of us to follow—me, most likely—and make an utter nuisance of herself. She’s done it before.”
Tansy gave a magnificently waspish swish of her great tail as if to say, And I’ll do it again.
“Well, the old girl will find her audience substantially reduced in a few hours,” Felicity said. “We have got the St. John ball tonight.”
A queer silence descended over the room, as if Felicity had blundered onto a topic that they had all tacitly agreed not to discuss. Because there was the possibility that Henry would be present, Grace supposed.
“You don’t have to come,” Mercy blurted out. “If you’re not up for it, that is to say. If—if it is too—”
Charity cleared her throat. “If you’d rather not attend this evening, we’ll make your excuses for you,” she said. “And if you do choose to attend, we’re happy to make certain that Lockhart keeps his distance, should he happen to be present.”
“I’ll come,” Grace said. “I’m no coward.
” She would have to face him sometime. Some things could be avoided only so long.
And the longer she waited, the worse it would be.
He’d danced so much attendance upon her just lately that the lack of it recently would no doubt invite speculation.
Best to give a good show of it, present herself as every bit as sociable and heart-whole as she had always been, lest the Ton begin assuming Henry had broken her heart.
Which he had. But she’d rather that not become public knowledge. A mutual break with no hard feelings left between them—that would be for the best all around.
She ought to have expected that the facade of a courtship would come back round to bite her on the arse eventually.
“No one would think you a coward,” Felicity said, soothingly. “Sometimes, one just needs a bit of time to one’s self. There’s no shame in it.”
There was a part of her that wanted that. A part that wanted nothing more than to hide away in her room and lick her wounds in privacy and comfort. The heartbroken part; the part of her that was a bit of a coward, at least in matters of the heart.
But she would not cower on his account. “I’m going,” she said resolutely. “I am going to go to that ball, and—and I will smile and laugh and dance and have a splendid time of it. Without him.” And more importantly, she would show all of London that she was having a splendid time without him.
The name they whispered tonight with vicious tongues would not be hers, by God. For once, it would not be hers.
“That’s the spirit,” Charity said, with a sly smile of approval. “We’ll have you done up to the nines this evening. Shine like the diamond you are, and let Lockhart see precisely what he’s missing.”
Yes. Yes, she would do exactly that. “What shall I wear?” she asked.
She had always favored richer hues than were generally allowed to young ladies.
Her dressing room was stuffed with gowns, many of which she had not yet worn—but she could not easily call to mind which Henry might already have seen.
“Green,” Mercy said. “It goes so very well with your eyes.”
Felicity wrinkled her nose. “She’s in green half the time anyway,” she said. “If she wants something unexpected, something surprising—”
“It must be white,” Charity concluded, directing her response to Grace. “You have got that lovely ivory satin, which I don’t believe you’ve yet worn.”
She hadn’t. It had seemed a bit too juvenile for a woman of four and twenty, but the modiste had insisted that the fabric would flatter her, and she hadn’t had the heart to decline it. “It’s a bit…plain,” she said.
“Oh. Oh!” Mercy jumped to her feet in a sudden surge of excitement.
“I have got the perfect thing. A bolt of lace netting arrived only yesterday, and it is just the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen.
It’s got embroidered stars made of silver thread, and it glistens in the light.
We could fashion an overlay for the skirt in no time at all, I’m certain. ”
“Yes, perfect,” Charity said. “And I’ll loan you my best diamonds for the occasion. Anthony has got such exquisite taste; they have just the richest fire to them. It almost makes one forget that diamonds are such cold gems.”
“Thank you,” Anthony said from the doorway, where he stood with a paper-wrapped bundle in his arms, his brows drawn in consternation. “I think.”
“I’m not ungrateful,” Charity assured him. “They are truly beautiful. It’s just that I don’t favor diamonds, as a general rule.”
“I do,” he huffed as he crossed the floor. “Diamonds go with everything. I’ve lost count of the amount of time you’ve spent browsing your jewels for the exact right hue of gem to go with your gown. The diamonds have cut the time it takes you to choose in half on average. Well worth the cost.”
“What have you got there?” Mercy asked, inclining her head to indicate the bundle he carried.
“Oh. Right.” Anthony veered toward Grace, held out the bundle to her. “Just arrived for you,” he said. “No note.”
No note. But with the hush that had once again descended upon the room, Grace supposed they all knew exactly who the sender had been.
Carefully she peeled back a layer of the paper, revealing two bouquets of flowers. One a voluminous bunch of roses, thorns carefully and painstakingly removed, long-stemmed and of a vibrant, velvety crimson.
Nestled beside it was a tidy little spray of purple blossoms, their stems neatly tied with a bit of pink ribbon. A child-sized bouquet—no; a cat-sized bouquet. A posy made entirely of catmint. For Tansy. Because she had not been permitted to avail herself of his garden lately?
Grace’s eyes misted. Within her chest, a tiny chunk of her already-fragmented heart crumbled clean away.
“Oh, that absolute scoundrel,” Felicity whispered. “That is—that is just—”
“Devious,” Grace said. “Underhanded. Positively Machiavellian.”
Thoughtful? Considerate?
Tansy scented the air from her seat upon the window sill, then leapt down in a lithe, elegant motion and trotted over for a better sniff.
Her claws flashed out to seize the bundle of catmint, pulling it off of Grace’s lap and onto the floor, where she proceeded to roll herself upon it in instant feline euphoria.
It was not enough to have broken her heart. Now he was going after Tansy’s, too.
Grace lifted her gaze to Charity’s. “Make me glitter,” she said fiercely.