Chapter Ten
Leland led Lady Winsome to one of the rooms containing a sideboard and poured her a glass of hock. He’d not been at all pleased to find her talking with St. John.
Even less pleased when he’d found his cousin dropping hints about whether the lady might be interested in relocating to the Portuguese court in Brazil.
The notion was absurd. Even with the stipend he’d be paid, and that was even if he would be appointed, he could not afford to wed.
Nor did he have the sense and maturity to wed, as he’d just mentioned Doncaster and it could be assumed he’d not thought to give up his reckless gambling.
And then for St. John to hint that all his difficulties were somehow his fault? The man was outrageous.
Leland paused his racing thoughts. Of course, St. John could not keep a wife with what he had now, but he could if he got his hands on Lady Winsome’s dowry.
If he knew his cousin, he’d take hold of any funds he could get his hands on, stupidly determine to increase it at a gaming table, and promptly lose it all.
“Lord St. John was telling me about a horse named Trulogap,” Lady Winsome said. She stared at him intently while she said it.
“A horse?” Leland asked, thinking that buying a horse was another thing his cousin could hardly afford.
“Yes, apparently there were gentlemen ruined on account of betting against him when he was not really lame.”
“Would not be the first time, I suppose.” Why was St. John telling some story about a lame horse? If he’d lost heavily betting on it, why would he advertise it?
“I just thought, if that were to happen to a gentleman, he might reflect on it and recognize his mistake. Going forward.”
Leland laughed. “Or shrug it off and try again another day, more likely.”
Lady Winsome looked fairly stricken and he could not imagine why.
Certainly, she was not developing ideas about reforming St. John?
He understood that ladies sometimes liked to try their hand at it.
Lady Melanie had been convinced she could inspire Lord Fartherington to put down the bottle once he found himself happily settled.
Then she had discovered she was much mistaken.
But if Lady Winsome were thinking of reforming St. John, that would mean she had an interest in him.
Could it be so? He’d been so sure there was something developing between himself and the lady.
He remained sure, he could not be mistaken.
Why would she ever have an interest in his ne’er-do-well cousin and his improbable plan to sail for Brazil?
“Ah, there is my father, tucked in a corner, just as he likes. I see the dowager agrees with him.”
“My grandmother?” Leland asked. How was it possible? She knew nothing of Lady Jellerbey’s soiree and he’d steered well clear of the house since early morning to avoid just such a circumstance.
“Oh dear, they have several bottles they’ve taken off the sideboard and they are heads together. I am afraid my father might bring your grandmother into some mischief.”
“Or the other way around,” Leland said grimly.
“Lady Winsome, Manderbey, I think you know Lady Edith?”
Leland turned to find Landry escorting Lady Edith. “Of course, yes, from Almack’s.” He made every effort to be polite, though he was not particularly enthusiastic to encounter Lady Edith. Or Landry for that matter. He wished all these people would take themselves off somewhere.
“Lady Winsome,” Lady Edith said, “Lord Landry and I have had an extensive conversation about crop rotations, but I wonder, how do you imagine that might work in a Brazilian climate?”
“Oh, I am sure I do not know.”
“But you ought to find it out.”
“Why?” Lady Winsome asked.
Leland would like to know just the same. Why should Lady Winsome care to know anything about crop rotations in Brazil? Or crop rotations anywhere?
Lady Edith turned to Lord Landry. “Lord St. John did say the lady was interested in Brazil, did he not? I did not mishear?”
“Yes, yes, he did indeed hint at it,” Lord Landry said. “Said he would not be surprised.”
“St. John is rather prone to spout nonsense,” Leland said.
“Guess what?” the duke said, arriving with the dowager on his arm. “We’re going to get tickets to Sir Jonathan’s scavenger hunt in two days’ time. It’s not in the park this year—it’s in his garden, at night. Who’s ever heard of it?”
“It should be a wonderfully ridiculous palaver,” the dowager said. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“Grandmama,” Leland said, “I did not expect to see you here.”
“No doubt,” the dowager said. “I noticed you scarpered off early today and did not return. I had to go through your calendar to find out where you’d be.”
“My calendar is private.”
“Then you should have hid it better,” the dowager said.
This struck the duke as rather hilarious and they clinked their glasses together.
Leland sighed. His grandmother was enough to handle in the countryside, but in Town she was far more difficult. With the duke’s influence, she was becoming impossible.
“Your Grace, Dowager,” he said, “may I present Lady Edith. I believe you already know Lord Landry.”
“Ah yes, we know Landry,” the duke said, laughing. “Poor fellow always looks shook up.”
“I am intending to change that, Your Grace,” Lady Edith said.
The duke seemed a bit startled to hear it, as they all were. But for Landry, who seemed delighted.
“Lady Edith really is doing it too,” Landry said. “If I say, ‘I do not know,’ she says ‘think about Landry, you probably do know.’”
It seemed there was some sort of budding romance between Landry and Lady Edith and it was just as bizarre as one might imagine from the combination of those two people. Lady Edith was forceful and it appeared that Landry was happy to be forced.
Lady Jellerbey, an energetic lady in general, hurried into the room looking flushed.
“Everyone, Lady Lucinda has just had the most marvelous idea. We are to have a Longways country dance running right down the corridor between my rooms. One of my footmen is a fiddler and has gone to fetch his instrument. Hurry now, it will be great fun.”
“What say you, Dowager?” the duke said.
“I suppose I am still light enough on my feet,” the dowager said.
Leland quietly groaned. It would be a miracle if she stayed on her feet. Nevertheless, he could not be unhappy with this development for himself. He would take Lady Winsome away from all these interlopers.
He turned. “Lady Winsome?”
He was unceremoniously pushed aside. St. John said, “Lady Winsome, you did promise me a dance.”
She looked surprised to hear it, but St. John led her away before she could absolutely refuse.
“Well, it looks like you are the odd man out, Lord Manderbey,” Lady Edith said.
He stared at her, as answering her with his opinion of the events of the last minute would be unconscionably rude.
She held her arm out to Lord Landry and led him toward the corridor.
Leland poured himself a large glass of claret.
St. John was on the hunt, though there might be two motives for what he was doing.
He might be after Lady Winsome’s dowry, or he might have noted Leland’s interest in the lady and was attempting to drum up trouble.
The trouble would have one goal—get more money out of him for a promise to back away.
Either way, Lady Winsome should be protected from his rogue cousin. Perhaps he would pay St. John a visit on the subject.
*
Mrs. Right took advantage of the quiet of the house.
Valor was long abed, with one of the housemaids sitting in her room to assure her of her safety from the mysterious Mr. Wicket.
The duke and Winsome were still out. She’d cleared out the servants’ hall early and she’d set the half of a poundcake leftover from dinner on the counter.
She was out of patience with that butler forever jumping out from behind doorframes and frightening her staff witless.
She was a lioness on the hunt and the poundcake was her bait to lure him in.
She was determined to get her claws into her quarry.
She hid in the shadows, waiting.
At first, all was silence. Eventually, her feet began to hurt and she began to think how pleasant it would be to put them up and sip a glass of sherry.
She was near giving up for the night, but then, the subtlest of sounds emerged.
A low and slow creak. Then a pause. Then another creak. Her prey approached.
She stayed very still as Mr. Wicket took his time assuring himself that the servants’ hall was emptied of people for the night.
Then, convinced he was alone, he slithered forward through the gloom in that creepy way that was all his own.
He might be mysterious and a spy for the crown, but he went for the poundcake like every other man in England would. As he reached for it, Mrs. Right swung the meat cleaver in her hand down into the wood of the table, just inches from his hand.
She was satisfied to hear the shriek that emanated from that individual. “Mr. Wicket,” she said in her most threatening tone.
“Mrs. Right. What are you doing? Why are you lurking in the dark? With a large knife?”
“I might ask you the same thing.”
“I don’t have a knife.”
“What are you doing here, though?
“I’m doing what I was hired to do.”
“Which is?”
“Act as the butler, as you well know.”
“I know no such thing. You have not acted as a butler, you have acted as a specter. Listen closely, Mr. Wicket, now that I know where you are hiding out, I will tear that wine cellar apart and throw out all your belongings when I find them. Everything you own, out on the street. Unless you care to start telling me exactly what I wish to know.”
In the dim moonlight casting a soft haze through the kitchens, Mrs. Right noted Mr. Wicket glancing back at the wine cellar door. “Fine,” he said. “What is it you wish to know?”
“Where exactly in the cellar are you holed up? We’ve looked there before.”