Chapter Three #2
“In the house? As sure as the nose on my face. Why are they here, though? Who is it? Why is someone here, somewhere, hiding away and chilling my blood? I’ve hardly slept in days, what with worryin’ over being murdered in my bed.”
“Now as I told the boys, if there is somebody here, it could very well be a street urchin slipped in for warmth and food,” she said, not any more convinced than she had been when she said it the first time.
“An urchin,” Cook said thoughtfully. “I suppose it could be. Where is the rascal hiding though?”
Mrs. Right and the Cook both looked round the kitchens.
“And then, there is also the smallest possibility that you’ve been greatly affected by coming here alone,” Mrs. Right said.
“In other years, some of the grooms have come ahead too. Perhaps I ought to have sent your kitchen maids, but then they are two young girls and to send them with no matronly supervision, well it would not have been seemly.”
“You hint that I may have imagined it all?”
“It is only a possibility. This house does creak, which could prompt ideas.”
“But the bread, Mrs. Right. I was very careful about measuring the bread.”
“Ah, yes, the bread.”
They both gazed round the kitchens, wondering about the bread.
*
Winsome examined her dress. She would be inclined to think that there had never in all the world been such a monstrosity made, had not Madame LaFray mentioned that she’d constructed more than a few of them in her time.
It was the dreaded court dress.
Valor had spent the past quarter hour rolling on Winsome’s bed and laughing hysterically. Now that Mrs. Right had, with a great deal of trouble, got Winsome into the dress, Valor cried, “It looks like a pile of curtains fell on you.”
Winsome would very much like to throw something at Valor, despite the fact that she was not wrong. It did look like a pile of curtains had fallen on her.
“Now,” Mrs. Right said soothingly, “it is not an attractive dress, there is no getting round it. However, it’s only to be worn once.
It’s my understanding that Lady Marchfield will take you in, you will curtsy, spend a few minutes at a reception, and then come home and take the thing off, never to be put on again. ”
“That’s the other thing,” Winsome said. “Our aunt. We have not seen her yet. We don’t know if she will send a butler yet.
Her silence is a bit nerve-wracking. She’s not forgotten about us, as she sent for the court invitation and secured my voucher and tickets to Almack’s, but what is she thinking? ”
Winsome well understood that because the queen was involved and Lady Marchfield had been informed that Winsome must make her curtsy, her aunt had written to the Lord Chamberlain and received the invitation.
A lady must take her into the queen, though Winsome dearly wished it could have been her father.
She had not been so sure her aunt would arrange Almack’s, but she had.
The voucher had been delivered this morning.
It was not as if her father could not arrange things with Almack’s, he just never got around to it. He said it would put him in a bad frame of mind to ask those patronesses for anything, considering how little they bothered to give him at their famously lackluster suppers.
“Mrs. Right, Thomas says there was someone in the house when we got here,” Valor said. “And they never found him. He thinks they might still be here! Our aunt might have sent a murderer into the house, she was that mad at Papa.”
“Aye, don’t I know the boys keep talking about somebody being in the house every time you kick me awake at night,” Mrs. Right said. “I’ve told them, it’s all nonsense.”
Valor had refused to sleep alone in her room and Mrs. Right had all but moved into it on account of the idea that someone, a stranger, might have been in the house.
“I have to be safe!” Valor pointed out, hugging Sir Galahad.
“I really do not see why Sir Galahad has to be in the bed with us, though,” Mrs. Right said. “He snores something terrible.”
Valor shrugged, as was her usual response to either her or her pug causing anybody trouble.
“All right now, love,” Mrs. Right said to Winsome, “let’s get you down the stairs. I think you’ll need some help, I should not like you to take a tumble.”
As Winsome prepared herself for the embarrassing hours to come, Valor fell back into hysterical laughter. “But if you fall, Winsome, you won’t even get hurt because you’re so wrapped up!”
Again, Valor was right, but that did not stop Winsome wishing to pick up a scent bottle and fling it at her sister’s head.
The dress could not be called anything but a monstrosity and Winsome really did not understand why the queen preferred the silhouette.
The fabric was a white satin and there was so, so, much of it.
The bodice was form-fitting, but then it sprung out in all directions.
It was decorated with lace and bits and bobs in an awful fashion that their dressmaker had insisted was the style de rigueur.
The hoops and the number of crinolines required to hold up the volume of the skirt was both astonishing and appalling.
When Madame LaFray had begun fitting the skirt on her, one layer after the next, Winsome had at first thought she was joking.
She had also thought the madame was joking when she explained that only pearls and diamonds should be worn. There was no explanation as to why.
And then, of course, there was the final humiliation—the three ostrich feathers atop her head that waved when she moved. As far as she was concerned, the feathers made her appear a rooster strutting around a barnyard.
Winsome’s only consolation was that she would not be alone in being preposterously outfitted. Every other lady making her curtsy would be in the same condition.
As Mrs. Right helped her down the stairs, the housekeeper said quietly, “If you can do it, try to find out what Lady Marchfield is thinking on the butler front. I did not like to say within Valor’s hearing, as the footmen have still got her frightened that somebody is in the house.”
“Is somebody in the house?” Winsome asked.
“Oh, I cannot think so. At least, it does not seem likely.”
Winsome was surprised that Mrs. Right did not sound as certain of it as she’d thought.
She had, of course, heard of the idea on the day they’d arrived to Grosvenor Square.
However, the house had been searched all the way up to the attics.
Nobody was found and she’d thought the consensus was that Cook had got nervous staying in the house alone.
The duke awaited them in the great hall. “Papa,” Winsome said, “do not tease me or I will fall into a heap.”
“No intention of it,” the duke said. “Though I believe you can now comprehend why I tried to keep all you girls as far away from this absurdity as possible.”
Charlie and Thomas were keeping watch out the windows. Charlie shot toward the doors and said, “She is here.”
As they all understood the “she” to be Lady Marchfield, the duke said, “Let us go out to meet the carriage. No point in drawing out this particular day.”
Winsome nodded. “The sooner it’s over, the better.”
It was no small feat to get Winsome into the carriage once she got there. After pushing hoops this way and that, she was finally crammed into it while the duke climbed in after her.
“Well Lady Misery, here we are again. I see you’ve given up the butler gambit—I’m disappointed, it was a very good game,” the duke said.
Rather than at all acknowledge the duke, Lady Marchfield patted Winsome’s hand. “You look lovely, my dear. At least as lovely as one can do in a court dress.”
“You have given it up, is that right?” the duke asked, his tone faintly tinged with concern.
Again, Lady Marchfield pretended she did not hear the duke.
To Winsome, she said, “I do not suppose anybody has outlined what you are to do today. I will walk you in front of Her Majesty. When I stop, you take a few steps forward and curtsy as low as you can manage. Her Majesty may say a few words, or not. If she does, be nothing more than grateful and demure. Do not attempt cleverness, she does not like it. After you are dismissed, we will both walk out backwards. Do not show your back to the throne!”
Winsome was grateful for the information. She’d understood the general idea but nobody had mentioned walking backward to get out of the place.
“Come now, Misery,” the duke said. “Admit it, you’ve given up on the butler game.”
“Have I?” Lady Marchfield said mysteriously.
“Haven’t you?”
Lady Marchfield only looked out the carriage window by way of answer.
As St. James was not far, they passed through the gates sooner than Winsome would have wished. Happily, there was a long line of carriages ahead of them. Or unhappily. She really did not know. On the one hand, she wished to never arrive. On the other, she wished to hurry and be done with it.
“Come now,” the duke said to his sister. “Let us have it done between us. It was amusing for me but perhaps less so for you. I am willing to give it up.”
“Good to know,” Lady Marchfield said.
“Have we given it up?”
“Roland, I understand that you would be pleased to know what I think and what I might have done. I am simply not inclined to inform you.”
What she might have done. What had she done? Did it have anything to do with the idea that there had been someone in the house?
The duke looked discomfited, and her aunt looked pleased. That was probably not a good state of affairs.
The carriage lurched forward. They were nearly there.
Winsome put the butler battle between her father and aunt aside.
In moments, she was to attempt getting out of the carriage wearing a monstrous skirt.
She had not got into it with any grace but she must somehow manage getting out without making a fool of herself.