Chapter Eighteen
The following day, Valor called on Lady Letitia. She had never imagined she would call on that lady and had spent most of her time wishing that lady away.
But then two things must be done. The lady must be thanked for saving Lord Tramondeley.
Or Weston, as she now called him in private as Tramondeley was rather a lot to say day to day.
As well, the engagement must be broken to her.
Valor was very afraid of how hard the lady would take it, but she was determined that Lady Letitia hear it from her and not be blindsided by some report of it out in society or in the newspapers.
Considering all the bad thoughts they’d all had of her and how she’d proved her worth when it mattered, it would not be fair.
She was led into the drawing room as Mrs. Right was led to the servants’ hall where she would “get a look at how other staff lived,” as she termed it.
“Goodness, Lady Valor. I am glad to see you looking well after last evening’s shocking events. I did look around for Tramondeley after the dinner but did not see him, nor you or the duke.”
Valor had already determined that she could not reveal what had really happened, as her father had pointed out that the Crown would likely wish it hushed up.
“Lord Tramondeley never did find the count, so we do not know where he’s gone,” she said. She did not mention that she, her father, Lord Tramondeley, and Lord Ledderbey had left the fête early.
“He’ll scarper, I imagine. I wondered what had happened to you when I saw Lady Thorpe being helped out by her lord.”
Valor also thought better of mentioning the cause of Serenity’s early departure, which she’d heard all about the next morning.
Apparently, the prince had arranged for a manmade stream with goldfish in the center of the table.
It had been an unfortunate idea though, as the goldfish went belly-up one by one.
Lord Thorpe had tried to keep his wife’s attention away from it, but when Serenity saw the first dead fish floating by, all was lost. Lord Thorpe had taken his weeping bride home, cursing the prince all the way.
That was not why she was here, though.
“Lady Letitia, you were very heroic last evening. If you had not given a warning…”
“Nonsense,” Lady Letitia said. “What is one to do when one spots a foreign count slipping through a crowd and then sees the glint of a blade. In any case, I thought all along there was something strange about him. He was trying to keep me on the hook, you see, though it was obvious enough that you were his primary quarry. He thought if he could not succeed with you, he’d settle for me.
The jest would have been on him, though! ”
“So, you would not have had him,” Valor said, “had he asked.”
“Not under threat of torture,” Lady Letitia said.
A footman came in with a tea tray. They fell to silence until he had departed and closed the doors behind him.
Lady Letitia poured the tea. Valor ginned up her courage. She must just say it and hope she did not have a cup of hot tea thrown in her face.
“Lady Letitia, there is one other matter.”
“Yes?” she said, handing over a cup. “What is it?”
Valor put her cup down with a clatter. She just must come out with it. “I am engaged to Lord Tramondeley. He asked last night and I have accepted.”
She braced herself for an onslaught of recriminations.
“Ah, congratulations, then.” Lady Letitia sipped her tea and smiled at her.
“But I did think, that is I imagined…”
Lady Letitia roared with laughter over her obvious discomfort. “Oh, I know exactly what you thought.” The lady leaned toward her and said in a low voice, “It has all been a ruse.”
“A ruse? All of it?”
“All of it. The clothes, the loud shrieks, the chasing round of Lord Tramondeley. All of it.”
It was true that just now the lady was dressed in a simple white muslin and not talking half so loud as Valor had been accustomed to hearing. But a ruse? Why?
“I see you require more information,” Lady Letitia said, seeming to enjoy herself.
“Well, my father and Lady Monroe have been in league these past two years to get me married off to somebody, anybody, who would become a duke. My father is a stickler for rank and not particularly practical. He makes pronouncements he expects to come true simply because he uttered them.”
“Oh I see,” Valor said, though she was not certain she did see.
“Lady Monroe is rather pinched for funds so my father has been paying her to escort me around. Fortunately, she is a rather dim soul. Every time she questioned me about my dress or my mode of flirting, I simply explained that it was how things were done with young people these days. As she did not wish to displease either me or my duke, she’s written him glowing letters about my efforts.
I feel as if somewhere inside her mind she realizes my mode of going forward could not possibly result in a proposal but she dares not say it.
She is frightened of the duke cutting off her funds. ”
“Goodness, it’s all been…very convincing.”
“Planning, that’s what’s required. I was heads together with my oldest friend, Penny Blackington.
She gave me all kinds of ideas about how to look as if I wished to wed while guaranteeing I never would.
On my last day, Penny said, ‘Letty, whatever you do, you must long for things. Whatever it is, long for it. It’s highly annoying and bound to do the trick. ’”
Valor thought Penny Blackington was on to something. She had found the longing for things annoying.
“Mind you,” Lady Letitia went on, “neither of us could have foreseen Tramondeley’s Cornwall party.
When I show Penny how I made that poor portrait artist change my face, she will positively howl with laughter.
I had quite the time not laughing myself—everyone seemed to believe that I had no idea what I look like. ”
Valor blushed as she recalled how incredulous she was over that sketch. “But why? Do you not wish to wed someday?”
“Oh yes, yesterday if I could. However, the gentleman I intend to wed is a baronet from my neighborhood. Not at all up to snuff, my father has said. So, I go through this pointless exercise and then when the duke is convinced I am on the verge of going on the shelf, he will give in to it. My baronet is fully prepared to wait him out. We get on terrifically—we ride all over the county and he does not mind a bit that I own my own fowling piece. We are country people, not Town people.”
Valor sat back. Lady Letitia appeared in a whole new light. What a brave lady!
Just then, Lady Monroe came into the room.
“Bad news, Lady Monroe,” Lady Letitia said, looking very downcast. “Lord Tramondeley has engaged himself to Lady Valor.”
Lady Monroe looked as if a brick had hit her in the head, momentarily stunned. She clutched at her heart. “Oh God, the duke.”
“Simply write to him that sadly, another season will be required,” Lady Letitia said.
“Yes, goodness, a carefully worded letter. Yes, I must think!”
The lady hurried out of the room.
“I do not blame Lady Monroe for any of it, mind you,” Lady Letitia said. “A desperate lady might try anything. In any case, my baronet and I have agreed—my dowry is enormous, we will settle something on the lady so she does not need to get up to these sorts of schemes in future.”
Valor was positively stunned. It did strike her that she would never again in her life make assumptions about another person.
One really never knew. The last thing she would have gathered from Lady Letitia was that she preferred the country and was in love with a baronet.
She found herself ashamed of what she’d thought of the lady.
She was determined to take Mrs. Right’s advice about shame—it was there to remind you not to do it again.
*
Damiano had woken to find himself in a cell. There were chains around his ankles and they were attached to the wall. The place was dank and dim with no window. There was not a stick of furniture in it, just a cold stone floor covered in green slime. He was not certain whether it was day or night.
The remnants of the prince’s party came back in bits and pieces. He’d failed to murder Tramondeley, foiled by that blasted Lady Letitia of all people. The only worry he’d ever had over that lady was how the marquis would view her if he were forced to take her home as his bride.
He’d thought he might be able to save the whole situation with Lady Valor by blaming Lady Letitia for the knife and naming Tramondeley as a spy for the French.
Then everything went dark. He believed Lady Valor might have hit him over the head with something. If that had been the case, he would never have been ready for it. How could anybody anticipate that nervous little lady hitting them over the head? How were women to be his undoing?
As he pondered his situation, he could not imagine what would happen. Would he be hanged? Who had locked him up? Had it been the prince? Was he in the tower?
Where was his coat? His shoes? His neckcloth was gone too. He supposed some jailor had made free with them.
He heard the sound of a rusty lock turning and forced himself to sit up despite the ache in his head.
He looked up and found the Lord Chamberlain himself staring down at him.
“Am I in the tower?” he asked.
“Hardly. You are tucked away in a lonely corner of the Marshalsea. You are lucky the prince regent and the queen are in agreement that they do not wish for any talk about this.”
Damiano presumed that meant he would not be hanged. At least not publicly.
“You will be escorted by ship to Morocco where you can see what you can do with the sultan to get yourself across the Strait of Gibraltar and then make your way home from there. You nor any of your family are ever to set foot on our shores again and your estate is confiscated by the Crown.”
“Morocco?”
The Lord Chamberlain laughed. “You did not expect us to sail you home, did you?”