Chapter 17
THERE WAS A DINING ROOM AT NORWOOD MANOR RESERVED FOR intimate dinners, meaning fewer than twenty guests.
Despite it being the usual suspects on this particular evening, Fanny made a point of assuring that the elder guests would sit at one end of the table, and the younger at the other.
She could not help Harriet interceding at the last moment to take Annabel’s intended place next to D’Evercy, where she proceeded to fawn over him.
But Annabel had graciously taken Harriet’s seat across the table, close enough that it might foster the occasional glance.
Cassie, meanwhile, flirted unashamedly with Warnaby, on her left, who kept his eyes trained on Fanny, who watched Billy try to cut his beef with a fruit knife.
Being who she was, Fanny assumed it a joke and was charmed.
Warnaby whispered to Cassie, sizing up the competition. “For how long might we expect Mr. Doofus to remain in Wakefield?”
Cassie finished chewing her bite of lamb chop and looked at him, beleaguered.
“Oh god. Eons and eons.”
“Oh?” Harriet interceded. “I understood you were most anxious to return home, once you had the desk. I assumed you wanted to take it with you. And that a Hepplewhite must be quite hard to come by . . . wherever it is you’re from,” she said dismissively.
“Virginia,” said Cassie, not having it.
“And we are so grateful for the desk, Miss Lackington,” Annabel said, trying to smooth things over.
“Even though the desk didn’t exactly work,” Cassie said behind her napkin.
But Harriet had ears like a vampire bat. “Oh?” she said, turning up her nose. “I understood any Hepplewhite desk would do.”
“Well. Turns out we’re pickier than we thought.” Cassie gave her a not-in-the-mood-to-take-any-shit-off-you smile. “No offense. Of course.”
“None taken,” said Harriet assuredly.
“Then you intend to stay?” D’Evercy asked.
“For the time being, yes,” Annabel answered.
“That is,” said Cassie, “until we find just the right desk.”
“I know the feeling,” said Fanny. “Sometimes, when one is looking, nothing seems right. And then, when one isn’t looking, or simply gives up, there it is—the thing you didn’t know to wish for.” She looked at Billy. “Don’t you agree, Mr. Doofus?”
Billy looked around to see all eyes on him, as he was still, apparently, living off the fumes of his Heimlich.
But now the stakes seemed so high. Reverend Tudor especially looked like he was hanging on whatever he’d say next.
Billy mopped his brow with his napkin, feeling the pressure to get it right, when suddenly, he lit on an idea.
“Yes! So true, Miss Gidding-Wedmore . . . It’s like . . . one can’t always get what one wants . . . but if one tries, sometimes . . . one gets what one needs.”
“‘One gets what one needs’!” said Lady Gidding-Wedmore. “Reverend! What good grist for a Sunday homily!”
“Yes,” said Fanny, with a look of admiration that did not escape Warnaby’s notice. “Well put, Mr. Doofus.”
“So very wise,” said Althea, fluttering her lashes.
“Our cousin William,” said Annabel, trying to keep a straight face, “a true philosopher.”
“And quite the ‘rolling stone,’” said Cassie with a bored bevel of her brow.
“A rolling stone!” said Reverend Tudor, raising his glass. “Freedom, adventure, wanderlust!”
“To possibility,” said D’Evercy, raising his glass, too, but looking directly at Annabel.
“Anyway,” said Cassie, trying to wrest back control of the conversation, “We’re only here until the right desk comes along. Could be any time. We’re not giving up.”
“Nor should you,” said Harriet.
“What about London for your desk?” offered a helpful Warnaby. Now the whole table was engaged in the matter.
“Who, in the warm summer months, would dare be seen in London?” said Lady Gidding-Wedmore.
“Oh, I would,” said Cassie. “In a hot second.”
“The moment your family wish to go,” said Warnaby, “I shall make my house available. I need only alert the staff. At your behest.”
“How very kind of you.” Cassie gave him her best sexy look, emphasis on the cleavage, though Warnaby seemed oblivious.
Lieutenant Revell caught the cleavage and the look. He raised a suggestive brow in Cassie’s direction, as if to say, I see what you’re up to, and I admire it.
“But surely, Mr. Doofus,” said Mrs. Lackington, “your family keep a house in town.”
Billy looked like a deer in the headlights. He glanced to Annabel for guidance. She nodded discreetly.
“I daresay, well, doesn’t everyone!” he said.
General nods of agreement around the table, except for Revell, who shared a look with Mrs. Lackington, both resident skeptics.
“May I inquire,” said Lieutenant Revell, “as to what part of London?”
Annabel started to answer for him, but Billy put his hand up to stop her, a sudden surge of confidence.
“Notting Hill!” he announced, pleased with himself.
Forks froze over plates, chewing ceased, serving platters stilled in midair.
“Notting Hill?” said Lady Gidding-Wedmore with a giggle. “Are you quite sure?”
All eyes again turned to Billy, who blushed. Althea hid a snicker in her napkin.
“I think so,” he said, losing his nerve. “Cassandra’s been there, haven’t you, dear cousin?”
“Not that I recall,” said Cassie, leaving Billy in the dust.
“Well, I recall liking it very much,” he said, trying to stand his uncertain ground.
“But, Mr. Doofus!” said Lady Gidding-Wedmore. “Notting Hill is at best a marshland, and no part of London at all!”
Billy tugged at his neckerchief.
“Well, we’re given to understand it will be,” said Annabel, to the rescue. “And fashionable at that!”
Now they were looking at her.
D’Evercy, seeing Annabel’s distress, cleared his throat. “London is full of surprises these days.” He looked at Billy and raised his glass. “I admire your pioneering spirit, Mr. Doofus.”
“As do I,” said Fanny, raising her glass to him as well.
“He got that from me,” said Cassie. “Not meaning to brag, of course.”
“Of course,” said Lieutenant Revell. “Whoever would think that?”
“We could all do with a bit more of that spirit,” said Fanny, “if you ask me.”
Annabel let her breath go and blinked slowly, the way one does when one has survived an ordeal.
When she opened her eyes, she found D’Evercy looking at her, amused.
She mouthed the words thank you. He bowed his head in a subtle gesture.
She couldn’t remember when she’d felt so grateful, or so done in.
***
It was the fashion that when the dining portion of the evening came to its natural conclusion, the men should retire to a smoking room where they might partake of snuff, cigars, and the occasional pipe, and drink, belch, and fart as they wished.
Reverend Tudor, smoking a cigar and blowing clouds of putrid smoke, had cornered Billy, who tried hard not to gag from the smell and even harder not to tell him how bad it was for his health.
The reverend was recounting Billy’s heroic gesture upon his choking on his beef, not a week ago.
Billy didn’t think he should really take credit.
“Nonsense!” said the reverend. “I, for one, shall always think of it as the Doofus maneuver!”
Warnaby, watching the scene, leaned toward D’Evercy. “Have you seen how Fanny fawns over him?”
“I suppose she finds him amusing, with his childlike nature. Honestly, he seems harmless to me.”
“I understand he’s attractive, in that insouciant way. There is something about him.”
“He has a certain charm, I suppose. But seems a bit of a blank slate.” D’Evercy swirled his snifter of brandy while subtly sizing Billy up. “There may, in fact, be nothing about him.”
“Well, I must know what it is. Or isn’t. That is, what I’m up against.”
“Fanny’s had her head turned, momentarily,” D’Evercy said. “But I trust her head will come back around to your superior talents and abilities.”
“I have money, of which she has no need.”
“Fanny has good sense. Be patient with her.”
Warnaby studied Billy too. “Still, I should like to know the measure of the man.”
D’Evercy signaled to a butler, who withdrew a chamber pot from the sideboard and set it on the floor.
Warnaby and D’Evercy, along with Reverend Tudor and Lieutenant Revell, unfastened their breeches and pissed in the pot.
Billy stepped beside Warnaby and did the same, trying to act nonchalant.
When he thought it was pretend, that was one thing, but this was another.
“Doofus,” Warnaby said to him, “I wonder if I might interest you in a rubber?”
Billy looked at him, startled.
“That is, if you play?”
“Only with ladies!” Billy hurried to finish his business and do up his pants.
“Clever man,” said Lieutenant Revell under his breath as Billy stepped back.
Warnaby finished too. “Doofus, I do hope I haven’t offended in any way.”
“No! I mean, of course I’m not against men, you know, playing.”
“Did you not play with men at Oxford?”
Billy shook his head.
“Personally, that’s where I learned, at Cambridge, or at least improved my rather . . . rough playing style.”
“I’m sure you’re really good at it, Warnaby. It’s just not my thing.”
“Well, if you like to play with the ladies, perhaps a mixed foursome then?”
Billy was utterly tongue-tied. D’Evercy buttoned his breeches.
“Oh, Warnaby, leave the poor man alone.”
***
The women, meanwhile, had withdrawn to a lavishly appointed drawing room, where they listened to Althea take a tedious turn at the pianoforte, singing ever so slightly out of tune.
It was a repetitive, dull piece of music that seemed to have no lack of verses.
Lady Gidding-Wedmore, Mrs. Lackington, and Harriet sat on a sofa, pretending to be entertained.
Cassie stood near the door with Fanny and Annabel, wishing she could escape.
“My gawd,” she said, rubbing her temples. “Is this the only song she knows?”
“Well said, Miss Blake,” said Fanny with a barely disguised snicker. “When she finishes, I shall recommend she do her fingers the favor of a rest.”
“Does the song ever end?” said Cassie.