Chapter Seventeen
It took far more than a few glasses of champagne to get Mavis truly drunk, but she enjoyed playing the part, and Philomena Gellis was right: The champagne did make the pageant slightly more tolerable.
Beside her, Thaddeus had grown increasingly annoyed by her outbursts as the show went on.
When it was over and the audience was milling through the amphitheater, he kept close to her, and for the first time in days, he wasn’t complaining about losing his boat race.
“I think you’ve had too much to drink, Delphinia,” he murmured in her ear after Mavis had loudly congratulated the parents of the boy playing the sun god, Solvo, who had summoned an orb of sunlight so strong that most of the audience had reached for their handkerchiefs to wipe beads of sweat from their brows.
The parents had been flattered, then increasingly horrified, by Mavis’s insistence that the boy should become an actor of all things.
“I am perfectly fine, Thaddeus,” Mavis said, watching the boy’s parents disappear into the crowd.
She slurred her words and wavered on her feet, taking hold of his arm to find balance.
“Weren’t you moved by how brilliant those children were?
The bright future of our people! Why, I’m starting to believe you have no heart at all. ”
Perhaps by picking a fight in public, she might manage to bring a quick end to their engagement, but before Thaddeus could respond, they were interrupted by Zelda Florrick, who greeted them each with a kiss to the cheek and an affectionate smile that wasn’t quite enough for Mavis not to see the curiosity in her eyes.
“And how are Garlin’s blessed lovebirds?” she asked.
In every city Mavis had been in, every Luster society she’d infiltrated, there was always one person who seemed to spread the vast majority of gossip, and in Garlin, that role belonged to Mrs. Zelda Florrick, who managed to relay the most scandalous stories about anyone and everyone in such a charming way that no one ever seemed sore with her afterward.
“Perfectly well, Mrs. Florrick,” Thaddeus said tersely before looking at Mavis. “I’m going to fetch the carriage, dearest.” He pried her hand off his and turned away, leaving her alone with Mrs. Florrick.
“I was just telling Thaddeus how wonderful I thought the show was.” Mavis made a show of slurring her words, which caused Zelda Florrick’s eyes to narrow. “The children were so talented, I was moved to tears.”
“We are indeed lucky to have such a bright, gifted future ahead of us,” Mrs. Florrick agreed, her mouth pursed as she watched Thaddeus weave through the crowd toward the exit.
“I’m sure it will be soon enough that your own progeny will be with us, no?
” Her eyes dropped to Mavis’s stomach, hidden beneath the full skirt of her lilac dress.
Why did people keep doing that?
She giggled. “Oh, not too long, I hope, but we have a wedding to plan before we can even think of children.”
“Oh?” Mrs. Florrick raised an eyebrow. “I was under the impression the wedding was set for the end of summer.”
Mavis’s thoughts scattered, and she wondered if perhaps the champagne had more of an effect on her than she thought.
Hortensia Tsu had said something about the cathedral being reserved already as well, but Mavis hadn’t thought much of that.
It was possible both women had spoken to the same misinformed source, she supposed, but before she could refute it, Mrs. Florrick continued.
“A grand wedding should be just the thing to put a stop to those nasty rumors, though.”
Mavis struggled to make sense of what she was saying, though she was careful to keep her confusion from showing on her face. “Rumors?”
“Oh, nothing to worry yourself over,” Mrs. Florrick said quickly, though she was already leaning toward Mavis, eyes glittering with excitement.
“It’s just that I heard from Mabel Huntington, who heard it from her cousin, Phinneas Gish, who’s a member of the same club as Thaddeus, that apparently Thaddeus has been struggling to pay his membership fees.
And then there was the kerfuffle over dear Oriana’s dowry. ”
Mavis’s chest tightened. “Oriana’s dowry?”
“My husband is very good friends with Basil Kettering—the banker—and he said that Thaddeus was searching for a loophole that would allow him to access his sister’s dowry, even though his poor parents explicitly stated it was Oriana’s money.”
“I see.” Mavis’s voice came out faint. In truth, she didn’t see at all, but she feared she was starting to.
“Of course, they were only ever rumors,” Mrs. Florrick said, waving her hand.
“Of course,” Mavis echoed before excusing herself to go wait for the carriage with Thaddeus.
As she made her way through the crowd, her mind spun.
Despite what Mrs. Florrick said, rumors were rarely just that, but she hadn’t picked Thaddeus for a mark on a whim.
No, it had been the result of research into every eligible bachelor in Garlin, including their financial records.
Leif had vetted them himself, and he did not make mistakes. No, Mrs. Florrick’s gossip was faulty.
But then there was that bit she said about the wedding date being rushed to the end of summer. Hortensia Tsu said the same thing—either both of them had bad information or the information wasn’t bad at all.
Mavis could only think of two reasons a man would want to rush an engagement: if he was madly in love, or madly in lust. Neither of those applied to Thaddeus.
Despite the pretty words he spouted when he proposed, he was far more in love with himself than he could ever be with another person, and certainly not her.
During the course of their courtship, he’d been the epitome of a Luster gentleman, never trying to do more than kiss her cheek.
So what was she missing? More to the point, what was she determined not to see directly in front of her?
Mavis swept her gaze over the crowded amphitheater and caught Arden watching her from where he stood with his aunt and Oriana, brow furrowed like even across the crowded space, he could read the unease working through her thoughts as clearly as text on a page.
There was a third reason for a quick engagement, the very same one that had Arden courting Oriana Mayles as fastidiously as he was.
Thaddeus Mayles was broke.
Arden tried to keep Mavis in his sights for as long as he could, but when they left the amphitheater, he lost track of her.
She wasn’t his problem, he reminded himself as he escorted Oriana Mayles down the shoreline that led to her family’s mansion.
He was only concerned, having seen the tension between her and Thaddeus, but he knew perfectly well that Mavis was more than capable of taking care of herself and the tension wasn’t anything she hadn’t sowed the seeds of herself, to further her own con.
“Did you enjoy the pageant?” Oriana asked him.
His aunt walked behind them, keeping enough distance to maintain the illusion of privacy but close enough that Arden was sure she was eavesdropping.
No doubt she would have notes for him later on how he’d fared in his attempts at courtship.
He was only grateful that she was keeping those notes to herself at the moment.
Arden realized he was more looking forward to his aunt’s scathing critique of his wooing than he was the courtship itself. It had nothing to do with Oriana, who was unobjectionably lovely in every way, but he was well aware of the fact that he was walking on eggshells around her, and she with him.
Was courtship always this awkward? In truth, the only woman he seriously courted was Mavis, and while he’d never felt stilted or uneasy with her, none of that had actually been real. Perhaps this was, in fact, perfectly normal.
“It was . . .” Arden cast his mind around for the correct word. “. . . a spectacle.”
“A spectacle,” Oriana repeated, a wry smile twisting at her lips.
“You were the wiser of us, I must say,” Arden told her. “I never thought to smuggle in a book to read. I trust it was more interesting than the show on stage?”
Oriana’s cheeks flushed. “Yes, I know it was terribly rude of me, but it is a very good book. I couldn’t bring myself to put it down for even a couple of hours.”
Arden remembered Mavis’s advice—to ask questions and show interest. It seemed like common sense, but hearing her voice in his mind helped.
“When I was a child, I hated being in the pageant even more than I hate watching it as an adult—I doubt you’d have hurt any of their feelings if they knew you were distracted. What was the book about?” he asked.
If anything, Oriana’s cheeks flushed a deeper pink. “Oh, you don’t want to hear about that.”
“I do,” he told her, meaning it. “I finished Affair of the Darkest Heart, you know, and I am looking for a new book now.”
That bit was a fib, but only because his aunt had commandeered his copy and he’d had a hard time prying it back from her.
She had been kind enough to summarize the rest of the book for him, though, mercifully skimming over the steamier bits for both of their sakes.
Even hearing his aunt retell the story had kept him on the edge of his seat, anxious to find out if Mr. Valance and Miss Reed managed to put their differences aside and admit their feelings for one another.
They had, in a scene his aunt had related beat for beat, involving a rowboat, a thunderstorm, and poor Miss Reed nearly being struck by lightning.
“You . . . enjoyed Affair of the Darkest Heart?” Oriana glanced sideways at him, her brow furrowed.
He supposed he was hardly the book’s intended reader, but he nodded.
“I thought it was excellent. The characters seemed like real people, flawed and still likable, and the setting of the ancient manor served as a constant reminder of the outdated and strict society that stifled them and their relationship. And I quite liked the dog,” he added.