Chapter 6
Six
By the time evening began to settle over Lady Penworth’s house, Genny had arrived at the uncomfortable conclusion that scandal, like poor tea, only grew stronger the longer it was left to steep.
The household had not yet exploded into open chaos, which felt almost unnatural after the day they had just endured.
The altered printed orders had been contained for the moment.
Lady Castlemain had departed in tolerably good humor, though she had done so with the air of a woman granting civilization one final opportunity not to disappoint her.
Lady Dorring had been appeased with assurances about floral precedence.
Mrs. Vale had left with the brittle expression of someone still disappointed not to have witnessed a better quarrel.
Yet the danger had not passed. It had merely gone quieter, and quietness in a house like this could be more threatening than uproar.
Lady Penworth had insisted upon serving a light supper to those still in residence, partly from hospitality and partly, Genny suspected, because the poor woman feared everyone would flee at once if allowed the opportunity.
So the remaining company had gathered in the back dining parlor beneath wax candles and painted cherubs, pretending with commendable determination that cold chicken, jellied salmon, and syllabub might somehow restore the world to order.
Genny sat between Alexandra and Mrs. Fanshawe, listening with half an ear to Mrs. Wexley’s fretful account of recopying invitation cards while the other half of her mind remained fixed on the folded subscription list, the missing ledger, and Harrison’s face when he had said, You matter to this.
How very vexing of him.
She ought to have forgotten it by now, or at least tucked it into some harmless corner of memory where it might do no further damage.
Instead the words seemed to return whenever she least wanted them, carrying with them not merely the warmth of his regard but the dangerous possibility that he had meant them exactly as they had sounded.
Harrison Jones used words too carefully for comfort. He did not toss compliments about and forget where they landed. If he said a thing, he had weighed it first.
Genny pressed her knife against the edge of her plate until the silver gave a soft click.
Far too easy to believe, that man. Far too dangerous.
Across the table Harrison was speaking quietly with Lord Penworth, one hand resting beside his untouched wineglass while they reviewed what must have been the timetable for tomorrow’s fête.
Even at supper he looked composed, dark-haired and severe in the candlelight, his face all clean planes and measured intelligence.
Yet Genny had now seen enough cracks in that composure to know how deceptive it could be.
She had seen him laugh, though briefly. She had seen him angry on her behalf.
She had seen him look at her not as Esme’s troublesome friend or as a complication to be contained, but as though her thoughts mattered and her injuries did too.
She could not think what she had done to deserve such a transformation in the space of one day.
Nor could she quite persuade herself she disliked it. Every time she tried, her mind offered her the same inconvenient evidence: his laugh, his anger on her behalf, the sure weight of his gaze, and the sound of her name in his mouth.
Alexandra nudged her under the table.
Genny glanced sideways.
“You are staring,” Alexandra murmured.
“I most certainly am not.”
“You most certainly are.”
Genny reached for her glass with all the dignity available to a woman caught behaving like a mooning schoolroom miss. “It is called observing. We are in the midst of an investigation. Some of us are contributing.”
Mrs. Fanshawe, who seemed to hear more than was reasonably fair, said without lifting her gaze from her plate, “One may contribute without studying a gentleman as though he were a cipher requiring translation.”
Genny nearly choked on her wine.
Alexandra, traitorously, looked delighted.
“I begin to think,” Genny said weakly, “that Lady Penworth keeps far too many perceptive women in one house.”
Mrs. Fanshawe’s mouth moved at one corner. “It is safer than keeping foolish ones.”
There was no answering that, especially as it was true.
The meal concluded with the subdued efficiency of people too tired to pretend cheerfulness and too well-bred to surrender to frank despair.
Once Lady Penworth had retired to consult privately with Mrs. Wexley over flowers, and Lord Penworth had gone off in search of Mr. Phelps and whatever remained of his subscription records, the company thinned.
Niall took Louisa home with the unconcealed satisfaction of a man who considered himself amply repaid for matrimony by the regular supply of social absurdity.
Alexandra and Magnus departed soon after, though not before Alexandra embraced Genny warmly and whispered that she was not to let other people’s malice determine her own opinion of herself.
Such wise advice deserved to be treasured and immediately obeyed.
It was also, at present, intolerably difficult.
Genny missed Lady Redford with a sudden ache. Esme would have said something appalling about drowning certain ladies in ornamental fountains, and it would have been no help at all, except that Genny would have laughed.
Instead Genny found herself in Lady Penworth’s withdrawing room with Mrs. Fanshawe at one writing desk, Harrison at another, and a silence settling over the room that felt less oppressive than the hushes earlier in the day. This one was occupied. Intent. The sort of silence in which minds moved.
The withdrawing room was smaller than the principal drawing room and infinitely more comfortable, with rose-colored walls, bookcases built into the recesses on either side of the fireplace, and chairs that invited candor rather than display.
The candles had been lit now, their flames reflected in the long mirror over the mantel and in the polished wood of the escritoire where Genny sat pretending to review announcement cards while her mind wandered determinedly elsewhere.
To Harrison, mostly.
This had to stop. It was not stopping.
She shifted another stack of cards and forced her eyes onto names and placements instead of the line of his shoulders beneath his coat.
Her gaze betrayed her at once and found the candlelight in his hair.
Genny looked back down so quickly she nearly scattered the cards.
Good heavens. This was how heroines in foolish novels behaved, and she had always judged them severely for it.
“Miss Moreland.”
She looked up at once.
Harrison had turned slightly in his chair, one elbow resting against the writing table, his attention fully upon her.
It ought not to have been possible for a man merely to say her name and make her feel as though the room had quietly reorganized itself around the sound.
Yet apparently with sufficient practice and the correct voice, it could be done.
“Yes?”
“I asked whether the card in your hand has offended you in some particular way, or whether you have only been glaring at it for the past quarter hour from principle.”
Genny looked down.
The card in question had indeed been upside down.
“That,” she said with dignity, “depends entirely upon whether the card has confessed anything useful.”
Mrs. Fanshawe made a soft sound that might have been a laugh.
Harrison’s mouth shifted, though whether toward amusement or patience Genny could not tell. “Has it?”
“No. But it has had every opportunity.”
She set the card down and rose, unwilling to remain seated beneath the full force of his attention. The room had grown warm from candlelight and banked coals. Beyond the windows the square lay blue-black and still, the last of the evening traffic muted by heavy curtains.
“What have you found?” she asked, moving closer.
“Two things,” Harrison said. “Both irritating.”
“Then we make admirable progress.”
He handed her a page from the subscription ledger Lord Penworth had managed to reconstruct from earlier entries.
“Lady Castlemain’s subscription was pledged publicly six days ago at Lady Berrington’s musicale.
Mrs. Vale increased hers the following afternoon.
Lady Dorring added her floral sponsorship two days later.
The revisions to the printed order and pavilion assignments seem to follow that same sequence. ”
Genny studied the dates. “Then whoever is altering matters is not merely stirring mischief at random. They are responding to each new development.”
“Exactly. And doing so from within a circle that receives social intelligence quickly enough to adjust the scheme as each new piece of news arrived.”
She looked up. “That suggests a lady.”
“Or a servant acting on someone’s instructions.”
“No,” Genny said slowly. “Not only a servant. A servant might alter a card or carry off a ledger, but this requires understanding. One must know not simply what was changed, but which changes would wound which people most effectively.” She tapped the page.
“Lady Castlemain would not be insulted merely by being misplaced. She would be insulted by being placed beneath the wrong person. Lady Dorring would not rage at a missing floral ribbon. She would rage at evidence that another woman had been preferred. And I…”
She stopped.
Harrison’s gaze lifted to hers. “And you?”
Genny managed a smile, though it felt thinner than she liked. “I would be ideal because people already expect me to be just untidy enough to ruin something important.”
The room went very quiet.
Mrs. Fanshawe, who had continued sorting cards while overhearing everything, finally rose. “I believe Lady Penworth asked me to verify the final subscription sequence in the breakfast room,” she said with suspicious smoothness. “I shall return presently.”
Genny watched her go and was not fooled for an instant.
When the door closed, the silence she left behind expanded.