Chapter Sixteen #2
But then Winsome had the idea that she would attempt to correct him in it. She became determined to rehabilitate him. That was even worse! Why did women forever think they were the cure when they always ended up being the casualty?
Still, what she’d understood from that idea was that Winsome would not be turned from the gentleman, despite the obvious risks. Once that girl dug her feet in there was not much anybody could do about it.
Winsome, of all people to connect herself to a rogue!
She’d been so determined to avoid danger at all costs.
Her head was filled with tales of innocent ladies, taken in by evildoers.
She’d gone into the season suspicious and on her guard, lest she be one of the unfortunates. And then she changed her mind about it.
Mrs. Right had been apprised of her girl’s steadfastness to the gentleman after it was too late to recall the announcement she’d invented about the banns between Lord Manderbey and Lady Edith.
She began to think it was she who would be the agent of Winsome’s grief.
She had not been certain she could fix it.
But then after that ridiculous rumor of Winsome being compromised at the scavenger hunt went round, she’d had an idea. She could blame both circumstances on some villain nobody knew.
It seemed she’d come through it. It seemed Lord Manderbey had come through it too.
Valor, that naughty little thing, had managed to get another letter out of the house.
She’d posed as Winsome and screamed a bunch of insults of the written variety.
Then Lord Manderbey had the temerity to scream back. What a letter he’d sent to her poppet.
Winsome was delighted with it, though Valor was in a stormy frame of mind on account of being poked fun at.
Mrs. Right had counseled her that she must not do anything further, lest she was thinking up some plan of revenge.
Someday, she promised, Valor would look back and laugh about this circumstance.
Considering the poor mite’s expression, that someday would not be this particular day.
She had cheered Valor by letting her in on the plan for this evening.
Winsome was to go to the masque and Mrs. Right had sent notes out to all her sisters.
They were coming early and in force to escort her and it was a surprise.
Valor was much mollified over the news, and then further cheered when she decided she’d better wear her hostessing clothes to greet their guests.
Mrs. Right had nodded gravely. Though Valor would not attend the masque, her hostessing clothes were more suited to it than any other occasion, including hostessing. She might have attended claiming she was an old dowager and nobody would have blinked.
Just now the housekeeper bustled into Winsome’s room to help her into her Cleopatra dress.
She found Valor in there too, sitting primly on a chair and already dressed in one of those ghastly hostessing dresses.
The particular look for this evening was a dull green brocade with a very full skirt and the requisite lace fichu.
She’d made some strange attempt at arranging her hair, with the crown pinned and some limp curls hanging down either side.
“How did you get dressed without me?” she asked Valor. Those dresses had at least a thousand buttons running down the back of them.
“Meggy,” Valor said, smoothing out her skirt. “She came in to clean out the ash in the fireplace and I had her do my buttons and curl some of my hair. I assured her you would not mind that she stopped her work to do it.”
This was all said in a graciously condescending tone so Mrs. Right presumed her little poppet was working hard to sound like the mistress of the house.
Winsome had so far said nothing, but only stared into her looking glass.
Valor pointed at her and said, “I haven’t told her anything. I am getting very good at keeping secrets.”
Winsome turned. “What secret?”
Mrs. Right sighed. Perhaps the first step in keeping a secret was not announcing you had one. Nevertheless, it was just as well it did not stay secret—Winsome could use some bolstering up just now.
“See? She doesn’t know!” Valor said.
“It is not so much a secret as it was to be a surprise,” Mrs. Right said. “Every single one of your sisters is coming to the house to escort you to the masque. You will arrive to Lady Darlington’s as a regular ladies’ army.”
“What a splendid idea!”
“I would have thought of it,” Valor said, “if somebody told me to think of something.”
“Of course you would have,” Mrs. Right said soothingly. She turned to Winsome. “Let us get you into this dress.”
Winsome nodded. Valor jumped out of her chair. “I heard a carriage stop. I will go downstairs to hostess until you come down, Winny. Take your time, I’ve ordered champagne for the drawing room.”
Valor skipped out of the room. Winsome said, “Since when can Valor order champagne for the drawing room?”
Mrs. Right shrugged. “Since now, I suppose. I imagine she directed Thomas to do it, she’s always had that footman wrapped round her finger. Never mind what your imp of a sister gets up to. It is time to dress, Cleopatra, and go find your Antony.”
*
Winsome was very much buoyed that her sisters had come. Mrs. Right always knew just what to do to help them all. She would be supported on all sides by five ladies who knew her through and through and would always stand behind her, even if she was wrong.
She’d come downstairs to a full drawing room.
The duke was delighted to see all of his daughters together and thought it a very good game to go to the masque in force.
He was just now getting a report on his grandchildren from Felicity and Grace, Felicity dressed in a medieval gown and Grace as a milkmaid.
The duke himself wore his favored costume—a white domino with red flames painted on the bottom of it that was supposed to represent the two times he’d set a lady’s curtains afire.
He would not give a toss for the idea that it looked very much like a vicar in a surplice going to the devil.
Valor had indeed managed to get champagne served and everybody seemed very jolly over the idea. She appeared enormously proud and carried round her own half glass of it, though Winsome knew she would not drink it as she thought it tasted terrible and the bubbles itched her nose.
Patience, Verity, and Serenity were dressed as the Fates—the Spinner, the Allotter, and the Inevitable.
Each was dressed in similar Greek robes, only their hand-fashioned tiaras indicating which role they took.
The Fates surrounded her just now as she told them everything she knew about the gossip going round about her, the newspaper mentions, and Lord Manderbey’s hilarious response to Valor’s letter.
After they took it all in, Serenity said, “Here is a strange thing, Winny. Thorpe was out all day and I’d not had a chance to tell him I would be coming here and I would see him later at the masque.
He would not mind it, I know, so I was not concerned about it.
He got home as I was dressing and I informed him of it and he asked if I was certain. ”
“So he did mind it?” Winsome asked.
“No, of course not, he’s too darling to mind it. He wondered over it because while he was out he encountered Lord Manderbey who wished to know if you had returned from Kent. Thorpe said he did not know. Then my dear husband asked me if you had gone to Kent and if I was certain you had returned.”
“I did not go anywhere,” Winsome said.
“That is what I said. But then Thorpe just shrugged it off and said Lord St. John told Lord Manderbey but he must have been mistaken.”
St. John. There he was, making trouble again.
“How would Lord St. John make such a mistake though?” Verity asked.
“Perhaps he confused Winny with some other lady?” Patience said.
“No, I am afraid not,” Winsome said. “I believe Lord St. John has been at the bottom of it all. He wished to turn me from Lord Manderbey so I suppose that is why he would tell him that I’d left Town. That is why Lord Manderbey did not come to the house, and I fretted terribly about it.”
“Is Lord St. John so violently in love with you that he would stoop to such ungentlemanly behavior?” Serenity asked, dabbing at her eyes.
“Would that be a usual thing?” Verity asked.
“That is not it,” Winsome said, lest Serenity turn on her eye faucets or Verity wildly speculate on it.
“I believe it is all about the money. He was dependent on Lord Manderbey to fix up his gambling debts but that source of funds has dried up. Lord St. John is being considered for the ambassadorship to Portugal, the court currently residing in Rio de Janeiro. He had some notion of making his fortune mining precious gems there.”
“Which would take money to get started,” Verity said.
“My dowry, to be exact,” Winsome said. “He made some very bold hints about how an ambassador ought to be married and how I might like Brazil.”
“That devil,” Patience said.
Winsome nodded, as indeed it did seem true.
What sort of man was Lord St. John that he thought he could lie and connive his way into a dowry?
Perhaps he might have got away with it, but Lady Winsome Nicolet had read a few too many novels to have the wool pulled over her eyes in such a manner.
She was beginning to think any lady agreeing to set off for Brazil with Lord St. John would be lucky to even come back again.
Maybe it would be more convenient to tip her off the side of the ship on the way back.
He might stoop to anything that seemed convenient.
“As a general thing,” Serenity said, “I do not like to be cruel, but in this case…”
“The point, though,” Patience said in her usual toe-tapping manner, “is that it has not worked. Winny will go to the masque and see Lord Manderbey and they will talk and everything will be all right.”
Winsome nodded. She had every hope it would be so.
“Well now,” the duke called from the other side of the drawing room, “I suppose we’d better get this circus going.”
Valor stood at the duke’s side, nodding graciously. “Thank you all for coming,” she said, holding up her untouched champagne.
Winsome smiled. It was time to go. It was time, finally, to see Lord Manderbey.