Chapter Seven
Leland had been determined to speak forcefully to his grandmother that morning.
It had not been possible though. Miss Price had reported that the dowager was under the weather due to the prior evening’s late night.
Leland presumed it was not the late hour that had affected her, but the flask of Canary she’d seen fit to bring with her.
Now they were in the carriage, having just set off for Grosvenor Square. He would use that quarter hour to say what must be said.
“You were a spectacle last evening,” he said.
“Oh really?” the dowager said. “Nobody dared say a word about it though, did they? I am a dowager duchess and I amused myself with a duke of the realm. Only the queen would dare scold me over it, not those puffed-up patronesses.”
Leland decided to drop that particular subject as it seemed he would not get anywhere with it. “I hope you intend to conduct yourself with a modicum of restraint this evening.”
The dowager shrugged. “Depends on the quality of the duke’s wine, does it not?”
“It certainly does not. Furthermore, I demand you cease attempting to manage my affairs, which I am entirely capable of managing myself.”
“Do not be ridiculous,” the dowager said. “If you were, I’d be surrounded by grandchildren by now.”
“Really, Grandmama, I am issuing a warning. If you do not restrain yourself I will have to pack you up and send you home.”
This elicited peals of laughter from the dowager.
“Oh that is rich. Manderbey, you have no imagination. Can you not conjure a picture of the dramatic show I would make of it? Drury Lane could not rise to the heights of what I could produce. I suppose I might even throw myself on the pavement and cry that I am an old and decrepit woman abandoned by my kin to starve in the countryside alone.”
“Nobody will believe you would starve.”
“People will believe anything from an old person lying on the pavement.”
She really was irascible. All Leland could do was pray she did not say anything outrageous at the dinner. Then, he really would have to find a way to send her home. He could not go on all season in this manner.
Perhaps his father could send a letter regarding…some emergency. Perhaps the duke could send a letter indicating that the new duchess was not getting the hang of things and required her instruction. The dowager would jump at the chance to boss about her daughter-in-law.
He would write his father about it. If there were anybody who knew how much trouble the dowager could be, it was the duke. Of course, since he did know it, he might not want to have her coming in his direction to trouble his wife.
As they rode along in silence, Leland reviewed the book he’d begun reading last night and had finished this morning over breakfast. The point of reading it was to have a common subject of conversation with Lady Winsome. What on earth was he to say about it though?
It seemed the vicar’s daughter who’d walked through the wood at twilight had encountered the mysterious man who had taken over Werely Castle.
He’d blown a powder into her face and she’d followed him willingly.
Then she was locked in a tower and when she came to her senses all she could think to do was scream out a window at night.
There was no explanation for why she did not scream in the daytime, or try to break the lock on the door, or how she survived without food and water.
The milliner’s swashbuckling son had come to the rescue and they wed.
As the church bells rang, the castle collapsed in a heap.
No explanation of whether the mysterious man was in it, though it was an accepted fact that it collapsed because he could not marry the vicar’s daughter.
What was he to make of that?
The carriage rolled to a stop in front of the duke’s house. He had not been to the address since Wembly got married there. He leapt down and assisted his grandmother to the pavement, though he’d rather leave her in the carriage.
Surprisingly, a footman showed them in and announced them. Leland had seen no sign of a butler at Wembly’s wedding and had assumed some illness or emergency had caused the absence. It seemed strange that he would still be missing from the scene.
The dowager greeted the duke as if they were fast friends, which he supposed they were after their little adventure last evening.
For himself, he was all eyes on Lady Winsome.
She had such a refined style. The bottle-green velvet with copper-braid trim was the sort of dress that would stand apart and be found superior.
And that was before he considered how it brought out the copper highlights of her hair and her perfectly freckled nose.
“Lord Manderbey,” Lady Winsome said. “This is my younger sister, Lady Valor. You may remember her from my sister Verity’s wedding.”
Leland had hardly noticed anybody else was in the room.
He looked about and found a strangely attired girl holding a dog.
He did remember her, as she’d given a bizarre speech at the wedding.
She was young and yet dressed as if she were a hundred years old.
Her dress was a heavy brocade in purple silk and embroidered with gold thread, the sort elderly ladies sometimes favored and everybody else would relegate to curtains.
The dress sported a lace fichu with a pearl necklace improbably worn over it.
Lady Valor held up a pug. “Isn’t he tremendous?”
“Lady Valor,” he said. “Um yes, he does seem so.”
She nodded in approval. “I will go and show the dowager. Old people are drawn to me and they always love my dog.” She marched off to the duke and his grandmother.
“I feel I should apologize for anything Valor has said or will say,” Lady Winsome said.
“Not at all,” Leland said, “else I’ll have to do the same for my grandmother. Lady Valor’s mode of dress, it that a Yorkshire style of some sort?”
The faintest blush spread over Lady Winsome’s perfect cheeks. “I’m afraid not. She calls them her hostessing clothes and believes they make her appear older than she is.”
Leland snorted. “They do accomplish that.”
Other people began to stream into the room. Most of the gentlemen he knew—Stratton, Dashlend, Stanford, Thorpe, and of course Wembly. As for the ladies, he often encountered Lady Felicity and Lady Verity, while the rest he’d met at the wedding.
As they exchanged greetings, one of the footmen reappeared at the door looking as if he had some very bad news to deliver. He was positively pale and whispered, “Lady Marchfield, Your Grace.”
All of the sisters seemed to take this announcement very hard, though Leland could not ascertain why. The rest of the family was gathered, why should it be unusual that the duke’s sister had arrived?
Perhaps it was the lady’s demeanor that set them off. She strode into the room with a look of defiance.
“Lady Misery,” the duke said, “what have I done to cause you to darken my door? Not a good time, in any case. I’m hosting a dinner.”
“As I am well aware,” Lady Marchfield said briskly. She turned to the footman, who was stock-still and staring at her. “Set another place.”
The footman fled the room and Leland was not certain if he’d gone to set a place or simply fled.
Lady Marchfield strode across the room. “Winsome, you look very well.”
“Aunt,” Lady Winsome said with a note of caution in her tone. “We did not know you would come.”
“Of course you did not, as I was not invited.”
“Yes, but how…”
“How did I know? I think you will discover I know quite a bit more than you would imagine.”
Leland could not begin to work out what was happening.
The same footman who had run out of the room ran back into it. “Your Grace,” he said, breathless, “we went to set another place and…”
“And?” the duke asked.
“And it was already set,” the footman said, steadying himself on the doorframe. The young man pointed at Lady Marchfield. “Somebody knew she was coming!”
The duke turned to his sister. “All right, what’s the game, Misery?”
Lady Marchfield put her chin up and said, “I do not play games, as I think you will discover.”
Leland looked back and forth between them. He did not know what went on in this family, but he was beginning to wonder why he’d ever bothered to worry about anything his grandmother might say.
*
Winsome hardly knew where to look. Lady Marchfield had inexplicably turned up. She acted so strangely these days. How did she know about the dinner?
And then, were the footmen going mad? What did Charlie mean that a table setting had been added and nobody knew who did it? Certainly Thomas must have done. Or perhaps he’d miscounted in the first place?
The duke interrupted her thoughts. “Well now, I suppose we move this palaver into the dining room. I’ll take in the dowager. Manderbey? Take in Winsome. Misery, I do not know who will take you in nor why you are here.”
Lady Marchfield, inexplicably, did not look at all perturbed to hear it. “I am quite able to walk into a dining room without assistance.”
Lord Manderbey held out his arm. Winsome laid her hand upon it but could not meet his eye. What must he think of all this?
She already knew how the place cards had been set.
Her father took the bottom with the dowager to his right.
Felicity took the top with Lord Manderbey on her right.
Winsome would sit next to Lord Manderbey on his other side.
Grace very awkwardly pointed out to their aunt where she was meant to sit, as there was no place card there.
The footmen brought round the wine, but their hands shook and they both stole wary glances at Lady Marchfield.
“Papa?” Valor said loudly.
Winsome pressed her lips together to stop herself from sighing. Loudly. Enough had gone on already, they did not need Valor adding to it with one of her outlandish speeches.