Chapter Seventeen
When Poppy returned home, the front hall contained two footmen, three open crates, one ladder, Freddie’s abandoned ribbon, and a stranger measuring the width of the passage with a length of string.
Poppy stopped just inside the door.
The stranger looked up. “Miss Montfort?”
“Yes.”
He bowed. “Mr. Pritchard, miss. His lordship’s man of business.”
Poppy’s stomach sank. “Lord Montague’s?”
“The same.”
Jenkins appeared from the direction of the study carrying a folded sheet of paper between two fingers, plainly unwilling to trust even his gloves with it.
“Miss Montfort,” he said gravely. “Mr. Pritchard has brought instructions.”
Poppy removed her gloves one finger at a time. “How many?”
Jenkins looked at the sheet. “Several.”
“Of course.”
Mr. Pritchard gestured toward the open crates. “His lordship has requested that certain preparations be completed before his arrival.”
Poppy looked into the nearest crate. It contained a dark wooden cabinet divided into dozens of small compartments.
“What is that?”
“A snuff cabinet.”
“A cabinet solely for snuff?” she asked.
“His lordship prefers his blends to be properly ordered.”
Poppy closed her eyes briefly. “What else?” she asked.
Jenkins cleared his throat and read. “‘The blue bedchamber is to be reserved for Lord Montague’s use, provided the eastern curtains have been examined and found adequate to soften the morning light without rendering the room melancholy.’”
“Could morning light not simply be asked to conduct itself more gently?” Poppy asked.
Mr. Pritchard blinked.
Jenkins continued, his expression heroic. “‘The rose-colored chintz in the morning room is to be removed, as his lordship finds excessive floral patterns injurious to sustained thought.’”
“Algernon has sustained a thought?” Mama’s voice floated down from above. “How marvelous. Someone ought to preserve it in a jar.”
She appeared on the landing in a wrapper of yellow silk, one hand trailing along the banister and a glass of champagne in the other.
“Mama,” Poppy said.
“Darling.” Lady Viva descended slowly, surveying the crates. “Is this the little cabinet for his powders? How industrious. He requires accessories to make sniffing seem like an accomplishment.”
Mr. Pritchard’s face remained fixed in an expression of profound discipline. No doubt he had received firm instructions against reacting to aristocratic eccentricity and meant to obey them.
Jenkins read on. “‘The dining-room chairs are to be examined for wear. His lordship has expressed a preference for green upholstery, preferably in a shade resembling the wing casing of Cetonia aurata.’”
Mama brightened. “Beetles!”
Poppy stared at Jenkins. “He wants beetle-colored chairs?”
“Apparently so, miss.”
“His lordship also requests that the silver urn in the front hall be removed,” Mr. Pritchard said.
“Why?” Poppy asked.
“It is unbalanced.”
Poppy looked at the urn. Lord Crampton’s latest flowers still overflowed from it. Freddie sat beneath them, chewing a fallen petal and looking pleased with his contribution to household beauty.
“The urn has stood there since before Algernon was born,” Mama said.
“His lordship found it unbalanced during his last visit.”
“Perhaps Algernon was standing crookedly,” Mama suggested.
“Mama.”
“What?” Mama shrugged. “It is possible.”
Mr. Pritchard consulted his notes. “His lordship further requests that lemons not be placed in any room he is expected to occupy and that the portrait in the study be moved to the north wall.”
“Which portrait?” Poppy asked.
“The late viscount’s.”
The words struck sharply.
Poppy looked toward Papa’s portrait. She could not see it, but she’d memorized it. The laughing face. The careless charm. The reminder of a life that had ended before Poppy understood how much it had protected.
Mama went still beside her. Only for a moment. Then she lifted her glass and smiled too brightly. “Well. Algernon has always disliked being looked at by men with better hair.”
Poppy swallowed. “Nothing is to be moved today,” she said.
Mr. Pritchard hesitated. “Miss Montfort—”
“Lord Montague arrives in five days. Until then, Lady Montague remains in residence. You may place the snuff cabinet somewhere discreet and measure whatever passages require measuring, but the portrait stays where it is.”
Mr. Pritchard studied her.
Poppy held his gaze.
At last, he bowed. “As you wish, miss.”
Mama drifted toward the snuff cabinet and opened one compartment. “Do you suppose he labels them? Morning melancholy. Afternoon pomposity. Evening reflections upon curtains.”
Poppy pressed her lips together.
She tried not to laugh.
She did regardless.
It escaped as a short, helpless sound, and once it began, she could not quite stop it. Perhaps because the alternative was shouting. Perhaps because five days from now Algernon would stand in this hall as master, and Poppy could do nothing about it.
Or perhaps because Gabriel had taught her that laughter could feel less like a disguise and more like a small rebellion she was still permitted to keep.
Mama glanced at her and smiled.
For one brief, tender moment, affection tightened Poppy’s throat.
Then Freddie walked up, inserted his snout, and sneezed into the snuff cabinet. Mr. Pritchard appeared ready to tender his resignation, and Mama laughed so hard she nearly spilled her drink.
Poppy laughed too.
There was nothing safe in the laughter. Nothing had been solved. Friday still waited. Algernon still approached. The house still trembled on the edge of ruin.
But for one bright, impossible instant, ruin had to wait its turn.