Chapter Twenty
The ash bucket Meggy had dropped sent up a cloud of dust in the corridor. The girl shrieked and fled in the other direction, leaving the mess behind.
This recalled both of them to the idea that they were in an open corridor in a house full of people, including the duke. Or Rolly, as he was sometimes called.
While Winsome was assured of her father’s good humor, Manderbey thought he might have pushed that good humor rather far the night before and did not wish to push it further by mauling his daughter in his own house.
Manderbey unhanded her and they proceeded down the stairs hand in hand and laughing.
The duke was asked for a private word. Winsome could not know what their conversation entailed beyond seeking the necessary approval, though Valor did assure her that she’d given the duke a full and detailed accounting of what she’d been forced to view that morning.
Whether the duke had been equally horrified by the description would never be known. If he was, it did not stop him from accepting Lord Manderbey as his next son-in-law.
A half hour and it was done. The two gentlemen came out of the library to find Winsome pacing the drawing room and Valor sitting arms crossed and glaring at her.
As the duke nodded in her direction to indicate his approval, Winsome had a great wish to fling herself into Manderbey’s arms again.
She did not do so out of respect for her father, and they went into the breakfast room in a circumspect attitude.
There would be time to be far less circumspect in future.
It came as no surprise to anybody that Valor trudged behind them deeply sighing and muttering to herself.
At table, Manderbey seemed to note Valor’s absolute disgust for him and his person. He said, “Lady Valor, I feel compelled to compliment you on being a worthy opponent, right from the beginning.”
Valor stared at him with rather dead eyes.
“I had a notion, though, that we might call a truce.”
“Why?” she said. “All I have left now is my dog. You are taking my last sister away.”
“Yes, I did think about that,” Manderbey said. “But then I thought if Lady Winsome is going, why not visit where she is going? When we return from the wedding trip we will settle in my house in Torquay. It has a terrific view of the sea. Why not come there for a few months?”
Valor appeared skeptical, though it was the most darling proposal ever made. And then of course, nobody would ever know that they’d been in Torquay all along.
“Do you go walking around there with no shirt on? Because I could not bear to see it a second time,” Valor said.
“Not in the corridors, at any rate,” Manderbey said.
“Can Sir Galahad come?”
“I would not dream of leaving him behind.”
Valor seemed to consider it. Winsome knew her well enough to know she desperately wished to say she would come. But she just as desperately wished to condemn everything about Lord Manderbey.
“I would also point out that my dowager lives there,” Manderbey said. “She would find it a real blessing, as everybody knows old people are particularly drawn to you.”
This happened to be one of Valor’s strong-held beliefs.
She was utterly convinced that she had the natural ability to cheer the elderly, despite pointing out to them that they were old, which Winsome was equally convinced they could not like.
She could see that Valor wavered at the idea of an old person requiring her beneficial company.
“Val, I really believe it would do the dowager good to have you there,” Winsome said.
“Well, I cannot say I am eager to go, especially because of what I saw this morning,” Valor said, once more insulting Lord Manderbey for good measure. “But I wouldn’t want an old person to suffer because of my own feelings. I am, before anything, charitable and gracious.”
Winsome pressed her lips together to stop her laughter. She adored Valor, but the last two descriptives she would have come up with were charitable and gracious.
“There we go, Val,” the duke said with a snort, “it’s settled.
Manderbey will send word that they’ve returned to Torquay and I’ll take you and the dowager there myself.
I have an old friend with very good fishing not twenty miles off.
Mrs. Right and the boys will have much needed time off in the Dales as the house will be empty. Everybody will be pleased.”
It was clear enough that Manderbey had arranged it all when he was behind closed doors with the duke, but Valor did not seem to apprehend it.
“What about Mr. Wicket?” Valor asked. “Where is he to go? He’s not to come to the Dales with us, is he?”
“Ah yes, that fellow,” the duke said. “I can’t think how he’s still hanging about the place. I was mightily surprised to see him last evening, as I imagined he must be long gone.”
Charlie cleared his throat from the sideboard. The duke turned. “Charlie, if you know something, out with it,” he said.
Charlie stood a bit straighter. “Your Grace, Mrs. Right has the situation well in hand. It seems Lady Marchfield is to pay off Mr. Wicket’s debts if he can last the season. So he’s been living in the wine cellar and keeping out of everyone’s way. Then he’ll be off.”
The duke laughed heartily. “Our Mrs. Right always has a plan. Lady Misery’s head will blow off her shoulders to discover she’s spent money on a fellow living in the cellar and doing nothing. Good fun. Can’t wait to see what happens next year.”
They went on rather jolly after that. Valor, having felt she’d saved her pride and insulted Lord Manderbey to her satisfaction, adopted a much better frame of mind.
How long it would last, Winsome could not say.
Her younger sister’s worst fear was coming to pass—she was to be left alone with no sister by her side.
Thank heavens she had Mrs. Right and Sir Galahad to soften the blow.
Lord Manderbey reluctantly took his leave near noon, intending on returning with the dowager for dinner.
He was to go home to bathe and change and then meet the duke at Doctors’ Commons to arrange a special license with the archbishop.
The solicitors would meet to work out the details of the contract the following day, though the duke was not at all worried about it.
Manderbey had apparently assured him of a more than generous jointure and a ridiculous amount of pin money.
And after all, the duke remained unaware of the gambling problem that never was.
Though the duke had warned Lord St. John that he would come to his house to ensure he’d gone, he sent Thomas to do it, as he was fully confident the fellow would have hightailed it out of London.
It seemed that he had done so, as nobody answered the door and the house appeared closed up.
Thomas had even walked down the mews and found the stables deserted.
Lord St. John had gone far away and would go even farther still, all the way to Brazil.
As for Winsome, she took herself to the drawing room to fire off notes to her sisters that they must drop everything and come to dinner.
She must have them all here. There was too much happiness to not have them here.
Even Valor was much mollified once it was suggested to her that she ought to make lists of what must be packed in her trunks for her grand tour of Torquay.
Once that was done, Valor began to compose a list of pieces of wise advice she might deliver to the dowager in a gracious and charitable manner.
She intended to monitor what that lady ate very closely, as the vicar had once said avoiding rich foods and strong drink was the best way to keep a body in good working order.
*
Leland had borrowed one of the duke’s horses to make his way home.
He’d thought he’d have to send a groom to collect Apollo from St. John’s stables, but he was speedily informed that the horse had been returned in the middle of the night.
The groom told him that they’d all been dead asleep and woken by a pounding on the door.
The stablemaster had answered the pounding and been exceedingly perturbed that Lord Manderbey’s horse was to come home without him.
He’d demanded an explanation from the fellow holding the reins.
At first he did not get one, but then he’d handed Apollo off to a groom and taken the fellow by his coat’s lapels and lifted him up.
He may also have hinted that a person failing to explain why he brought a horse without its rider might expect to be severely injured if that person did not give over a full explanation.
St. John’s servant ended by explaining that they were packing the house up and leaving that very night and that Lord Manderbey was currently located in the Duke of Pelham’s house on Grosvenor Square.
The stablemaster had gone to the duke’s house himself to check on the veracity of it and discovered it to be true.
Leland presumed his cousin had considered the duke’s threats and thought better of taking him on. His ship was to depart Falmouth in a month and St. John would have relocated there.
He handed over the duke’s horse to his groom to be returned to Grosvenor Square.
Leland could already see the dowager peering out a window, lying in wait.
He was ready for her. She could either fall in line or get out.
If she wished to make trouble, he would personally put her in a carriage to the estate she’d once ruled.
She could be bossed about by her daughter-in-law if that’s how she liked it.
No amount of threats or histrionics would turn him from it.
Leland proceeded into the house and she met him in the great hall. “Well? What in the world has gone on?” she asked.
He leisurely made his way into the drawing room, flipping through the letters that had been left in the hall for him.