Chapter 8
Eight
The following afternoon dawned bright, mild, and entirely too beautiful for social calamity.
That, Genny thought as she stood before the mirror in Lady Penworth’s blue bedchamber while a maid fastened the last pearl button at her wrist, was often the way of it.
The world had a cruel habit of looking loveliest precisely when one felt least equal to facing it.
Outside the tall windows, May sunlight lay in pale gold across the square, drawing shimmer from carriage tops and the young leaves of the plane trees.
Somewhere below, servants were already moving tables into the garden and carrying flowers toward the pavilion with the careful solemnity of men who had learned by bitter experience that peonies and ladies’ tempers were equally liable to bruise.
Within the chamber the air smelled of starch, lavender water, and the faint sweetness of the hothouse roses Lady Penworth had insisted upon sending upstairs that morning, as though flowers might mend all that yesterday had broken. Genny had not the heart to tell her otherwise.
She had slept very little. Not because of the trap, or Mrs. Fanshawe’s exposure, or even the lingering discomfort of knowing how narrowly she had escaped public humiliation, though all those things had occupied her thoughts by turns.
No, the true cause of her restlessness had been far more personal and therefore vastly more troublesome.
Harrison, of course.
Harrison saying You may in that quiet, unguarded voice. Harrison’s thumb at the inside of her wrist. Harrison promising, as solemnly as another man might vow before an altar, that once the fête was saved they would speak of something other than floral precedence.
It was enough to disarrange a woman’s thoughts for half the night and leave her waking with the absurd sense that her life had tipped toward some new alignment.
Even now, remembering it sent a tremor through her wrist, as if her body had kept the imprint of his touch more faithfully than her good sense approved.
It would have been far easier if she could dismiss it as the effect of candlelight, exhaustion, or two people left too long beside a fire.
But Harrison did not spend words carelessly. He buried feeling until it had weight enough to break through.
The maid stepped back. “There, miss. You look lovely.”
Genny glanced once more at her reflection and made a face so fleeting that only she saw it.
Lovely. Of course.
Capable would have been more useful. Unshakable, better still. Immune to handsome viscounts with grave eyes would have been ideal.
Instead the mirror offered a pale green gown, pearls at her ears, and a face society would assume had spent the night dreaming of ribbons rather than evidence.
Very well, then. If the world insisted upon underestimating her even now, she would at least make use of the fact.
By the time she descended, Lady Penworth’s house had given itself over to the bustle of the fête.
The front hall smelled of flowers and beeswax.
The blue salon had become a receiving room for benefactors and titled ladies, while the rear doors stood open to gardens filled with striped awnings, refreshment tables, and a musicians’ pavilion gleaming beneath extravagant garlands.
Ladies in spring colors drifted over the gravel walks like animated bouquets.
Gentlemen stood in discreet groups pretending not to take notice while noticing everything.
Servants moved in a polished stream of trays, note cards, and last-minute instructions.
And through it all there ran that same thin taut thread Genny had felt since morning: anticipation, yes, but also the lingering possibility of disaster.
No one present knew how close the previous day had come to ending in social bloodshed.
No one except the handful involved guessed how much had been corrected in the night.
The fête shone like a polished thing balanced upon a hidden crack.
Genny saw Harrison the moment she stepped into the back hall.
He stood near the terrace doors with Lord Penworth, one hand tucked behind his back, the other holding a folded printed order he was clearly using to verify placements as guests arrived.
Dark coat, immaculate linen, grave mouth, steady gray gaze, he looked exactly what he always had looked, which was to say a man born to authority and far too self-possessed for any woman’s peace.
Yet Genny knew now how deceptive that appearance was.
She had seen the man beneath the order, had glimpsed warmth, anger, dry humor, and the unsettling depth with which he felt the things he allowed himself to care about.
His eyes lifted, found hers, and held.
The rest of the room did not vanish; life was not so obligingly theatrical.
Yet for one instant, the noise and motion receded enough that the look between them felt private.
Genny felt it low in her ribs, a soft, dangerous tug toward him.
Not secret, not yet, but private all the same, and the small softening in his expression struck her more deeply than any public declaration might have done.
Then Lord Penworth said something at his side, and the moment dissolved before it could become dangerous.
Genny resumed walking with what she hoped was composure and very much feared was the gait of a woman trying not to float.
“You are late,” Alexandra murmured when she joined her near the benefactors’ dais.
“I am a few minutes late.”
“In love, then,” Louisa said.
Genny nearly trod upon her own hem.
“Must you both be unbearable before luncheon?”
Alexandra’s eyes danced. “Only when occasion requires.”
“And the occasion clearly does,” Louisa added, following Genny’s glance without any attempt at subtlety. “Though I concede your viscount is making a valiant effort to look as though he has never been troubled by an emotion in his life.”
“He is not my viscount,” Genny said automatically.
“Of course not,” said Alexandra.
Louisa nodded with such profound insincerity that Genny could only glare, which availed her absolutely nothing.
The formal opening of the fête began with more success than anyone who had endured the previous day had likely dared hope.
Lady Castlemain was seated exactly where she expected to be, which improved her temper by an almost miraculous degree.
Lady Dorring was given such floral prominence in the south garden that she could hardly complain without seeming unreasonable, a possibility she was not yet prepared to risk.
Mrs. Vale, though still sharp-eyed, found no error sufficiently public to satisfy her appetite for superiority.
The subscription acknowledgments were delivered correctly from the recovered ledger, the musicians played in the proper pavilion, and the only thing to go meaningfully amiss within the first hour was a pug who stole half a tart from a distracted baronet.
Genny, moving through the gathering with Alexandra and Louisa, allowed herself at last to breathe a little easier.
Not much. Only a little. She had learned too well by then that peace could be theatrical too, especially in a house where so much effort had gone into manufacturing discord.
Yet as one quarter of an hour followed another without Lady Castlemain taking offense or Lady Dorring drawing blood over roses, hope began cautiously to unfold within her.
Perhaps this would hold. Perhaps the day might yet be saved entirely.
The thought had barely formed when Mrs. Wexley descended upon her with the air of a woman who had spent too many hours in intimate fellowship with disaster.
“Miss Moreland,” she hissed. “The announcement cards for the benefactors’ procession are missing.”
Genny closed her eyes very briefly.
“Of course.”
Mrs. Wexley looked offended by the implication that repeated misfortune might be excessive.
“They were on the silver tray in the withdrawing room not ten minutes ago, and now only the first six remain. Lady Castlemain’s is gone.
Mrs. Vale’s is gone. Lady Dorring’s is gone.
And if they are not found at once, the entire presentation order will be thrown into confusion before the assembly. ”
For one sharp moment, the world narrowed around those words with yesterday’s dreadful focus.
There it was. The final lunge. Not a stale remnant of yesterday’s sabotage, but something current, active, and deliberate.
Mrs. Fanshawe had been confined, the ledger recovered, and the principal lists checked.
The announcement cards had been verified that morning and appeared correct.
If they had gone astray now, someone else had decided the old mischief might still be made useful.
“Who knew they were there?” Genny asked.
Mrs. Wexley wrung her hands. “Everyone. No one. Lord Penworth asked for them. Lady Penworth checked them. A footman carried the tray in. I told Maggie to stand outside the room until the procession. I turned my back for only a moment—”
Genny was already moving.
As she crossed the terrace toward the house, she saw Harrison detach himself from a group of subscribers and come toward her with that focused, unhurried speed of his that always suggested he had been prepared for calamity a very few minutes before anyone else scented it.
He read her face at once.
“What is it?”
“The announcement cards have gone missing.”
Any softness vanished from him. “How many?”
“The most damaging ones.”
He muttered something under his breath that was too well-bred to qualify as a curse, though the sentiment was plain enough.
“Where?”
“The withdrawing room.”
They went inside together, not running, for running would only draw eyes, but moving with such purpose that two footmen and a dowager instinctively stepped aside. The old current leapt between them at once. Not quarrel now. Not the fragile tenderness of the night before. Something surer.
He looked once at the tray, once at the door, then at her.
She was already moving.