Chapter Four
Valor stopped in her tracks. The afternoon had gone by so joyfully. Three of her youngest nieces and nephews had come for a visit. Serenity’s girl Daisy, Verity’s boy Henry, and Winsome’s boy Leland had made happy chaos in the drawing room.
Valor had heard all about them in letters of course, but what jolly little people they were.
At least, mostly. Young Henry Foster could not be mistaken for anybody’s son other than Lord Wembly, as he came with a shock of red hair.
While Verity assured her that Henry could be in a temper on occasion, he’d spent the hour very creditably by laughing at everything that caught his notice and Sir Galahad in particular.
Isabelle had more wildly swinging emotions, so was sometimes laughing and sometimes red in the face.
Leland was really still a baby and spent most of the time examining how the other two were up on their feet and trying to accomplish the same.
Now this evening was to be a family party and she would see all her sisters and her dear nieces and nephews after a long parting. She’d just risen to go above stairs to change her dress when the duke had said, “By the by, did I mention that Tramondeley is coming?”
“Tramondeley?” Valor asked, turning round. “Your heir? The terrible fellow who might make me a governess to his children if I end a spinster?”
“Ah yes, as to that, perhaps I outlined the worst case. Perhaps he’s not as bad as that. In any event, he is living just across the square. Seemed like it wouldn’t be the thing to ignore him. We’ll take him as we find him, I suppose.”
Her father’s heir. They’d never laid eyes on him.
All Valor knew about him was that the duke and Tramondeley’s father had never seen eye to eye.
His father had been a very serious sort of person and the duke…
was not. His father thought the winds of fate had been blowing in the wrong direction to have made her papa the heir and not himself.
They’d had a final falling out about something or other and never spoke again.
“Cheer up, remember that all my grandchildren are coming too. We’ll see them before dinner and then they will be entertained by the housemaids below stairs.
That is the end of the good news, I’m afraid,” the duke said.
“We will also see your aunt. Apparently, Lady Misery has got her claws into Tramondeley, though I do not know how she even discovered he was in Town. She’s sent me a note that she was coming whether I liked it or not. ”
Goodness, Tramondeley was coming and so was Lady Marchfield. It was not to be the carefree dinner she’d imagined.
Valor hurried out of the room and up the stairs. She was relieved to find Mrs. Right already waiting for her. She examined the rather simple dress that lay on the bed.
“I think I will wear something different,” she said. “I thought this dinner was to be just my sisters and their husbands, but did you know that Lord Tramondeley is coming?”
“Tramondeley?” Mrs. Right said in evident surprise. “The duke’s heir? I thought he was holed up in Cornwall somewhere.”
“Now he’s here and living just across the square,” Valor said. “And Lady Marchfield comes too.”
“Does she now?” Mrs. Right said. “I suppose she’ll want to have a look at how Mr. Huberville gets on.”
“How does he get on?” Valor asked. “Every time I see him he looks as if he’s seen a ghost.”
“Aye, that’s his natural condition. He is nervous and apologetic and falling down every time a person turns round.”
“Goodness.”
“Goodness is one word for it. Now, what do you think about that dark-blue silk with the velvet edging on the bodice and cuffs?”
Valor nodded, as it was a very good choice. Just then, the door was flung open and her oldest sister, Felicity, burst into the room with a case under her arm. “There you are, Val. Gracious, you have grown into a proper lady!”
“Felicity!” Valor said, flinging herself into her sister’s arms.
“Now, I do not arrive so early for no reason,” Felicity said, laying the case on the bed. “I have conducted a sisterly conference of sorts about what we ought to do about your jewelry, or lack of it.”
Valor had long been aware that she’d got the short end of the stick regarding her mother’s jewelry.
Their father had allowed them to take what pieces they liked, but Valor had been far too young for the task.
She’d picked out the worst sort of paste and anything loud and colorful that had caught her eye.
For years, she’d been dogged about wearing a particularly awful, enameled parrot pin.
“We’ve all contributed pieces that we thought would suit,” Felicity said, opening the case.
Inside were all manner of necklaces, earrings, bracelets, and even a tiara.
“We all pitched in for the tiara as nobody could be convinced to give up their own,” Felicity said, laughing. “Poor Stratton was taken aback to get a bill from Rundell & Bridge for one-sixth of a tiara. He wished to know what I planned to do about the other five-sixths.”
“I could wear it tonight, even though I am not engaged,” Valor said, marveling at the platinum and diamond piece. “Papa will not mind it.”
Mrs. Right had fetched the dark-blue silk. Felicity looked it over and said, “Perhaps add the delicate diamond necklace, that came from Grace and will suit the dress very well—it’s not too showy.”
Her sisters were very dear to compose a jewelry case for her. She really had not known what she was to do about that.
“Felicity, did you know Lord Tramondeley was coming tonight?”
“Our papa’s heir?”
“Yes, and our aunt too.”
“Gracious, this might be more exciting than I had imagined. Is that why the new butler looks on the verge of collapse?”
“No, he’s always like that,” Mrs. Right said. “He’s not one of Lady Marchfield’s sturdier specimens.”
“Well, I will give our aunt credit for dogged determination with her butlers. I’m sure however you manage him, Mrs. Right, this certainly must be her last effort.
Val, get dressed and don your new tiara,” Felicity said.
“I cannot wait until we are all together again. For now, Isabelle is in the drawing room giving her sage seven-year-old advice to Papa on what he ought to do if he finds himself in a temper, which she has vast experience with. Closeting oneself in one’s room and stomping on the floor is highly recommended. ”
With that, Felicity left the room.
*
Weston held his arms up and Stockton put on his coat.
Lady Marchfield had been as good as her word and sent a very skilled tailor.
The man was almost a magician, he’d returned days later with an entire wardrobe.
Stockton said he employed an army of tailors working night and day to execute his designs.
Considering the bill, it might have been several armies.
Despite the enormous expense, both Weston and his valet approved of the result. Weston had been forceful in his view that he did not want to be turned out as a prancing dandy and he’d not been. The clothes were elegant and simple, with a precise cut, just what he would prefer.
It had probably been time he did something with his clothes in any case. It was just that there did not seem to ever be an extra moment when he was in Cornwall. He was awake most nights sailing and asleep most days, which did not make for an opportunity to accomplish mundane tasks.
Stockton brushed his coat and made some small adjustments to his neckcloth. “I don’t like it, my lord.”
His valet was a man of few words, but as they’d known one another and worked in close quarters for years, Weston understood his meaning.
It was not a comment on the clothes. In answer, he said, “I will go to the dinner and meet this duke and then I suppose that will be that. We are not likely to become friends. He might rent me a house but that does not buy my approval.”
“Careful of that last daughter he has hanging about the place.”
Weston laughed. “I imagine you have not met many duke’s daughters. She’ll be insipid and fanning herself and fishing for admiration. She will find, though, that she fishes in an empty lake and will not find any compliments on her hook. It is always the way with a duke’s daughter.”
Stockton snorted. “How many duke’s daughters have you met?”
“Just Lady Letitia when she visited Lady Monroe and they turned up at the house. That was quite enough for one lifetime. Lady Monroe was most approving of Lady Letitia, so I presume she was a very usual sort of duke’s daughter.”
Weston had not comprehended it at the time, but he now suspected that Lady Monroe’s visit to the house with Lady Letitia in tow had been for the sole purpose of throwing that lady in front of him.
They had arrived unannounced and pretended they’d thought it was Lord Ledderbey’s at-home day.
The lord did not host an at-home day, which Lady Monroe would know very well.
He and Lord Ledderbey went on very much as hermits and nobody would imagine they would fling open their doors to all and sundry.
On occasion, a card had been dropped off but they generally looked at it and shrugged, never thinking about it again.
Nevertheless, Lady Monroe and Lady Letitia were persistent at the door and Ledderbey was forced to let them in.
Then he had to explain how it was that Weston was still asleep at two in the afternoon.
He’d made up some story about Weston just returning from a trip.
After Lady Monroe put up an endless fuss over not seeing him, Lord Ledderbey was cornered into asking them to come back for dinner.
What a night that was. Lady Letitia was a tall and razor-thin lady with an oddly pinched face, rather bulging eyes, and a painful shriek of a laugh.
She had apparently bathed in powerfully scented water and was a walking flower garden, the scent lingering in any room she’d been in.
He’d been surprised she had not attracted bees.