Chapter Fourteen #2
“Perhaps Hemmings and Smythesdon will find out more over port,” Daisy said hopefully.
“Perhaps,” the viscountess said in a grim tone.
“I don’t like it,” Mrs. Dallway said.
“I certainly do not like it,” Pansy said. “Were we wrong? It really did seem—”
“You were not wrong,” the viscountess said.
“We all saw it,” Mrs. Dallway said. “This…I do not know what to make of it.”
“I do not know what to make of it either,” the viscountess said, “but I do know how we are to respond to it. These two gentlemen cannot expect to be entertained by my daughters after displaying so little courtesy as to leave a visit early with no explanation that I can fathom.”
Pansy had rarely seen her mother angry, but she was very angry now.
“Poppy, Pansy, you will retire. Take your cups of tea with you. I will say you have developed headaches. The message ought to be crystal clear. If there is anything of note to hear further, we will hear it and apprise you of it in the morning.”
Pansy would very much like to stay in the drawing room. Just in case anything was said that might allay the impression they’d been given of the gentlemen running off.
She understood her mother’s reasoning though. As far as the viscountess was concerned, her daughters playing the pianoforte and playing backgammon to entertain the gentlemen would be close to humiliation. She would not allow it.
Though Pansy had been feeling very sad, now she felt some anger mixed in with it. What had she and Poppy done to earn such an insult?
It did feel like an insult, too. It had something to do with why they were closeted behind closed doors in the library all day, of that she was certain.
She knew they were lied to. They said they had both been called away.
That was not true and she suspected that was what had most got the viscountess’s back up about the whole thing.
But what in the world was said between them in the library that caused them to leave? And leave at the same time, when as a usual thing they would prefer to inhabit different continents?
Did they somehow fear being involved in the case against the two housebreakers? Was there some sort of societal risk in it? Would that be peculiar to the north? She had no idea what went on in that part of England, they might have very strange ideas.
Maybe they thought there was something shameful in being involved in a court case?
She could not be sure, but they had seemed to avoid being interviewed by the magistrate.
Maybe that was why they’d stayed in the library.
They might not have been talking at all.
They might have just been sitting there in silence, avoiding the situation.
If that was it, well, it was rather weak tea to Pansy’s mind. She would expect Lord Burkhart to be made of sterner stuff.
She took her cup from her mother, and a handful of biscuits for good measure, and followed Poppy up the stairs. On the landing, they heard the gentlemen heading for the drawing room and they hurried to Pansy’s room.
Pansy shut the door behind them. She and Poppy stared at one another.
“How is this possible?” Poppy asked. “I feel as if I am having a terrible dream.”
“I am shocked, Pops,” Pansy said.
“It really does not make sense,” Poppy said.
“I wondered if we just imagined…but Mama says we did not.”
“No, we could not have.”
There was a quick knock and Henrietta came in. “I was told you had come up early. I was surprised to hear it.”
Considering they both burst into tears and talked at once, it was not surprising that Henrietta should be apprised of the events leading to them going above stairs early.
The maid tsked and shook her head and generally looked disapproving of the two gentlemen.
She handed them handkerchiefs to dry their eyes.
“There now, I will go and bring back exactly what you need, which is a generous glass of sherry. Then you will get into your nightclothes and sit by the fire and sip your sherry. It will ease you both, so you might get some sleep tonight. Things will look better in the morning.”
Henrietta hurried out.
“I do not think all the sherry in the world will help us sleep tonight,” Pansy said.
“No, it would have to be a very big glass,” Poppy said.
“Let us save Hen some work,” Pansy said, feeling as if she should somehow stay busy. “I’ll undo your buttons, you undo mine, and we will be in our nightclothes by the time she gets back.”
Poppy nodded. “We have nothing else to do.”
“No, nothing else.”
“Nothing at all.”
“Not one thing.”
With those sad thoughts, they got themselves undressed and into their nightclothes and put wool wraps over their shoulders and a second blanket over their knees. The fire was going, but both of them felt very cold. Very cold and empty.
It was a particular feature of twins that what Pansy felt, she knew Poppy felt too. They were cold and empty.
Henrietta returned with two glasses, an entire decanter of sherry, and a plate of marzipan. She set it all down on a small table between their two chairs.
“You really do understand us, Hen,” Pansy said, picking up a piece of marzipan.
“Aye, I understand two young ladies in the throes of a disappointment. You won’t be the first. Now do not stay awake too late into the night, it will not do you a bit of good,” Henrietta said.
The lady poked at the fire rather violently, as if perhaps Lord Burkhart and Mr. Lelander were to be found in that location.
“I suppose we’ll get over it someday,” Pansy said, though she did not see how that could be true.
“I doubt it,” Poppy said.
Pansy nodded sadly.
“Now, listen to me,” Henrietta said. “There is something wrong with those two gentlemen. I do not know what it is, but perhaps you have had a lucky escape. If they cannot act right in this moment, how would that bode for the future?”
Pansy did not know. All she knew was that she’d been hoping for a future.
“Do not lose sleep over those two, is my advice.”
Pansy and Poppy assured their maid they would not, though of course they would.
Henrietta left the room muttering something along the lines of she’d like to choke the life out of those two rogues. It was very comforting.
They spent the next three hours drinking sherry, eating marzipan, weeping, leaning their ears against the door to see if they could hear anything from the drawing room, vowing they would be spinsters together forever, deciding they would become teachers and adopt street urchins, proposing that they might dress in widow’s weeds and invent dead husbands, wondering what Belgium was like, declaring they would dedicate their lives to the lord’s work, examining the marzipan and thinking they might open a marzipan shop, and assuring each other that the amount of sherry they’d drank was perfectly acceptable, considering the situation.
That they fell asleep slumped in their chairs would surprise nobody.
Smuckers felt a sort of rage in his breast like a hot poker. If he had the power, if he were a lord, he would have taken both Lord Burkhart and Mr. Lelander by the neckcloths and thrown them from the house. Let them walk home.
He had never seen such behavior from two gentlemen. As he had seen some very odd behavior from other lords over the years, that was really saying something.
Lord Smythesdon had ridden The Turk, drunk and against all advice, and broken his leg.
Mr. Hamilton had ridden off, also seeming drunk, and slid off his horse, injuring his head. Of course, that one had been caused by his footmen accidentally drugging Mr. Hamilton in an effort to calm him, but Smuckers had not known that at the time.
Lord Hemmings had come disguised as his friend, Mr. Wendall, on account of his feeling that being a marquess with a dukedom in his future was a very hard fate.
Viscount Winkelman had been on the run from his parents, and that fellow had been odd from start to finish so it was just as well Mr. Weston had stepped in.
And then Miss Lily’s house party. All the gentlemen who’d attended had their moments.
Particularly Mr. Brummel putting the twins up to writing a letter to the prince which had been judged close to treason and oh, by the by, it was all just a jest. And then Mr. Philips almost drowning at the regatta because he could not swim but had imagined he could as he’d seen it done.
All of that, and yet nothing like this. These two gentlemen had made clear their interest in their respective ladies. It had seemed as if proposals were in the offing.
And now, they would very suddenly leave at first light after rudely taking over the library for an entire day.