Page 12 of A Lesson in Propriety (Merriweather Academy for Young Ladies #1)

Twelve

A mere two minutes after his mother, Wilhelmine, and two other sisters, Eloise and Tilda, came barreling into the entranceway, Rhenick found himself being hauled into the sitting room, Coraline using somewhat of a sailor’s grip to keep him moving at a fast clip. After shoving him onto a striped green-and-cream–colored chaise, she told him to stay put before she dashed out of the room again, clearly anxious to rejoin everyone else, who’d said they were repairing to the kitchen to request some coffee and treats.

In the Whittenbecker family, coffee and treats were considered a must in any unusual situation, and given that he’d never experienced a harrowing incident before, he wouldn’t be surprised if an entire feast showed up at some point in response to what his family would certainly see as an unexpected disclosure.

“Did you get sent in here because you’re in trouble too, Uncle Rhenick?” a voice asked from across the room.

Rhenick glanced around and discovered Edwin, Tilda’s son and the only boy who’d been born into his family since his birth some twenty-eight years before, sitting in a small chair in the far corner of the room, his little five-year-old shoulders slumped and looking decidedly dejected.

“I’m here because your grandmother is probably even now devising the best way to go about interrogating me and didn’t want me to be privy to whatever strategy she’s going to put into play,” Rhenick said.

Edwin’s nose wrinkled. “What’s interrogating mean?”

“Asking questions.”

“What is Grandmother gonna ask you questions about?”

“My harrowing day.”

Edwin’s nose continued wrinkling. “What’s harrowing mean?”

“Disturbing.”

His nephew nodded. “I’ve had a harrowing day then too.”

“How so?”

An exaggerated sigh was Edwin’s first response to that before he leaned forward. “Hattie punched me.”

Rhenick blinked. “Your twin—as in sweet little Hattie—punched you?”

“She’s not as sweet as everyone thinks,” Edwin muttered. “You can ask Malcolm. He’ll tell you I’m not wrong.”

“Malcolm’s a beagle. It might be difficult for him to tell me anything.”

“All you have to do is take one look at him this evening to know what he’s thinking because Hattie stuffed him into a doll dress and tied a bonnet on his head.”

“Your mother used to put hats on my pony when we were children and also enjoyed tying ribbons in his mane.”

“Bet she didn’t do that and put flowers in all the rifle barrels of your toy soldiers.”

Rhenick refused a grin. “That very well might have been crossing the line, but I’m not exactly sure why, if Hattie punched you, you’re sitting in the naughty chair and not your sister.”

“No one knows that Hattie punched me ’cause I’m no snitch,” Edwin said. “I put myself in trouble because I wanted to punch her back, but...” His shoulders took to slumping again. “You told me that boys always have to treat girls, even their sisters, with the most udderly respect, so I’m gonna sit here until I don’t feel like punching her.”

“I think I used the phrase utmost respect instead of udderly,” Rhenick began, “but I’m very proud of you for making the decision to take some time to gather your temper instead of giving in to the urge to punch Hattie.”

“I’m still mad at her.”

“Perfectly understandable, and know that I’ll have a talk with Hattie because I have a feeling she knows you’ve been told you’re not supposed to punch girls and she might be using that to her advantage, but...” Rhenick stopped talking and glanced to the door when the sound of feet marching in unison down the hallway reached him. “I think my interrogation squad is approaching.”

“Think if I stay here with you, that squad will start askin’ me questions ’bout what I’m doing in the naughty chair?”

“You know they will.”

“I’m suddenly not feeling like punching Hattie anymore,” Edwin proclaimed as he jumped from the naughty chair and scrambled for the door.

Unable to help but grin at his nephew’s rapid retreat, Rhenick rose to his feet right as his mother breezed into the room and made a beeline for him. After helping her get settled on the chaise, he turned to his sisters, his grin widening as he watched them jostle one another around, looking quite as if they’d joined a game of musical chairs as they went about the business of trying to claim the most comfortable chairs for themselves.

In less than a minute, Tilda and Eloise were sitting on a fainting couch that wasn’t hard as a board, while Grace was smiling smugly from her spot on a slipper settee that wasn’t as soft as the fainting couch but wasn’t completely uncomfortable.

Coraline, on the other hand, who’d suffered a tumble during the mad rush, was looking grumpy as she perched on the very edge of a wingback chair that had a tendency to creak if a person so much as shifted on it, even though it had been highly recommended by an interior decorator who’d set up shop in town, but one Rhenick wasn’t convinced knew the slightest thing about furnishings.

“You’ll be pleased to learn, dear,” Wilhelmine began, settling a smile on him, “that coffee and tea have been ordered, along with some cheese. I know you’re probably famished after the harrowing day you’ve experienced, but while we wait for everything to be delivered, perhaps you could take a moment to give us a few specifics about what happened to you.”

“I hardly know where to begin as I fear my thoughts are still rather discombobulated,” he admitted.

Wilhelmine’s eyes widened. “You’re experiencing discombobulation?”

“When you say it like that, it almost sounds as if I’m experiencing some type of grave malady that may soon see me on my deathbed.”

“No one ever died from discombobulation, darling, but I do think I’m getting an inkling as to why you’ve experienced a harrowing day.” Wilhelmine gave his hand a pat. “It involves a lady, doesn’t it?”

“You’ve met a lady and didn’t tell us about her?” Eloise demanded as his other sisters leaned forward and settled accusatory eyes on him, as if they believed he’d been holding back on them.

“There hasn’t been anything to tell you as I only just met the lady who was mostly responsible for my very peculiar day,” he said.

“And this lady is responsible for your discombobulated state?” Tilda pressed.

“I must admit that she is.”

Wilhelmine settled back against the chaise. “You must tell us everything, and from the beginning, if you please, so that we’ll be able to fully comprehend your peculiar situation.”

Rhenick nodded and then took a moment to attempt to collect thoughts that were still scattered before he tilted his head. “In all honesty, it started off as a completely normal day, one where I got up before dawn, shaved, then fetched some coffee from the kitchen.”

Tilda scooted forward on the fainting couch. “Why didn’t your valet shave you and ring for your coffee since that’s what you pay him to do?”

“Herman has difficulties getting out of bed before nine because he didn’t used to get home from his previous job until after midnight.”

“I forgot your valet used to work in an ale house,” Tilda said as if that explained everything, which it actually did.

“I’m sure he’ll eventually get accustomed to my schedule, but the staffing agency did warn me that Herman wasn’t exactly qualified, given that he had no valet experience. I’m the one who decided to hire him anyway, though, since there was no telling when another unqualified candidate might show up at the agency looking for work.” Rhenick smiled. “On the bright side, if I ever need an ale poured, Herman’s an expert. He spent fifteen years behind the bar at the saloon he worked in before it burned down.”

“While there’s no question Chicago continues to suffer from less-than-qualified domestic workers,” Wilhelmine began, “if we could return to your story, as the hour is growing late and I have a charity event to attend first thing tomorrow morning, that would be wonderful.” Her eyes took to twinkling. “And not that I care to tell you how to go about telling a story, darling, but perhaps it would move matters along more rapidly if you began not from the moment you got out of bed, but from when events began to turn harrowing for you.”

“You know if I hadn’t started from when I got out of bed, someone would have interrupted me and asked me what I ate for breakfast.”

“Everyone knows what you eat for breakfast. Two slices of toast, two eggs over easy, coffee, and occasionally you’ll add a bowl of fruit, but usually only on Saturdays.”

“I’ve always wondered why you only eat eggs over easy,” Coraline said. “Is it that you enjoy the yolks being a little runny, which would explain why you don’t ask for hard-boiled eggs, or even scrambled?”

“We are not going to launch into a discussion of the many ways Rhenick could eat eggs, not when he has yet to explain more about this lady who sent him into a discombobulated state,” Tilda said firmly.

“You’re the one who distracted him with the whole valet topic,” Coraline didn’t hesitate to point out.

A narrowed eye from Wilhelmine left his sisters abandoning their bickering, which left him free to launch into his story, garnering everyone’s undivided attention when he got to the part of his day where he encountered a redhaired lady dashing out of the Merriweather castle with a ferret in tow.

Before he could get to the part about the cloaked woman, though, one of their housemaids, Charity, lumbered into the room, pushing a coffee cart that seemed to have a faulty wheel on it, the wheel obviously responsible for why the cart crashed into a table. Rhenick was on his feet a second later, scooping one of his mother’s favorite vases out of the air before it had a chance to smash to the ground.

After setting the vase on a table that was far removed from the cart, Rhenick sent Charity, who was now looking more than frazzled, a smile before he asked her to return to the kitchen because she’d forgotten the teapot and Tilda had never been keen on coffee.

As Charity moseyed her way out of the room, clearly in no hurry to fetch the tea, Rhenick took it upon himself to serve his mother and sisters, save Tilda, a cup of coffee before he poured a cup for himself and retook his seat.

“Where were we?” he asked.

“The appearance of a redhaired lady and a ferret,” Eloise supplied.

Rhenick took a sip of coffee that gave new meaning to the word strong , then set the cup on a saucer that was sporting a rather large chip in it. “Quite right, but before any of you decide that the redhaired lady is why I had a harrowing time of it today, she’s not—well, not really, although her ferret does play a role in that, but I’m getting ahead of myself.”

Eloise rose to her feet, her eyes gleaming in a rather unusual manner. “Since you were at the Merriweather castle, and everyone knows that Ottilie Merriweather is old money—as in old New York money—may I dare hope that this redhaired lady is a relative or friend of Miss Merriweather, come to visit from New York, and also hope that she was accompanied by a ferret because those creatures have become all the rage within the most fashionable set, or rather, the New York Four Hundred?”

Dead silence settled around the room for the briefest of seconds until Coraline crossed her arms over her chest and released a bit of a grunt. “If you’re about to suggest that you get a ferret for your next birthday because you think that’ll secure you invitations to the most prominent houses after you make your debut, you should just stick with asking that the whole house be painted to match the door instead.” She smiled. “A red house will assuredly make you smile anytime you return home. Waltzing around the city with a ferret, on the other hand, would leave you in a perpetual grouchy state since ferret ownership isn’t going to impress any of Chicago’s most prominent society matrons.”

Eloise’s nose shot straight into the air. “My favorite color has recently changed to yellow, but know that if ferrets are all the rage within that oh-so-glamorous Four Hundred, me being one of the first to adopt one will certainly see me invited into the fold of Chicago’s socially elite.”

Tilda cleared her throat. “I hate to be the bearer of disappointing news, but I don’t think acquiring a ferret, even if they are all the rage in New York City, will be enough to have the matriarchs of Chicago’s high society issuing any Whittenbecker an invitation to their events.”

“Why not?” Eloise demanded.

“We’re too newly rich to hobnob with old Chicago money.”

“Marshall Field started making his money right around the time Father did, after the fire of ’71, and he and his family enjoy all the exclusive society events,” Eloise argued.

“That’s because Mr. Field owns a department store that all the ladies enjoy frequenting, whereas we own a construction company,” Tilda said. “And before you say something about how construction companies are perfectly respectable, you have to remember that the majority of construction companies in Chicago possess dubious reputations—as in, they’re run by members of Chicago’s criminal underworld.”

“But we’re not members of the criminal underworld,” Eloise countered.

“Of course we’re not, darling,” Wilhelmine said before she took a sip of her coffee and immediately set aside the cup, giving the distinct impression she wasn’t satisfied with the coffee that had come out of the kitchen today. “Your father is an upstanding gentleman who would never dabble in criminal activities, but that hasn’t stopped rumors from swirling around the upper crust of Chicago suggesting otherwise.”

“What rumors?”

A sigh was Wilhelmine’s first response before she rose to her feet and intercepted Charity, who was returning with a cup of tea for Tilda. She took the cup from the maid, probably in the hopes Charity wouldn’t trip and spill hot tea everywhere, handed it to Tilda, and then squared her shoulders.

“I always hoped I wouldn’t have to divulge what I’m about to divulge to all of you, but in the interest of avoiding a repeat occurrence of what happened when Tilda made her debut, know that I did try to get us included within the upper echelons of Chicago society, but failed miserably.” Wilhelmine began wandering around the room, finally pausing beside the floor-to-ceiling windows. “It was very humbling to suffer a public dressing down in the middle of the Palmer House dining room, but that’s exactly what happened to me.”

Her eyes went distant. “There I was, dressed in what I thought was a most delightful outfit, dripping in diamonds and determined to introduce myself to an entire table filled with prominent society ladies.” She pushed aside the curtain and peered out the window. “I was certain those ladies would welcome me into their midst after learning I was the wife of Franklin Whittenbecker, one of the most sought-after builders in Chicago, and then feel ever so honored once I extended them invitations to Tilda’s debut dinner. Sadly, that’s not what they did.”

“What did they do?” Eloise asked.

“Nothing pleasant,” Wilhelmine said before she turned from the window and began fiddling with one of the bracelets encircling her wrist. “I found myself being looked at as if I were something unpleasant one finds on the bottom of one’s shoe the moment I stopped by their table. And then, I’ll never forget this, Mrs. Getchell released a titter before she leveled ice-cold eyes on me and informed me that diamonds should never be worn in the afternoon. That was then followed up by Mrs. Peck stating that the Palmer House didn’t enjoy serving women—and yes, I did note that she didn’t call me a lady—whose husbands were involved in less-than-legitimate business endeavors. That right there is how I know without a shadow of a doubt that the majority of socially well-connected people in Chicago believe we’re criminally connected.”

“Didn’t you explain to them that they were wrong?” Coraline asked.

“Since I was relatively certain they might have been right about the diamonds because no one at that table was wearing anything remotely sparkly, I wasn’t going to argue with anything they said.” Wilhelmine gave a bit of a shudder. “I gathered what little dignity I had remaining and bolted out the door, licking my wounded pride all the way home.”

She squared her shoulders. “But enough of my sad tale of complete and utter humiliation. It’s past time we return to a far more important matter, which is to delve further into Rhenick’s harrowing day, or more specifically, exactly who the woman is who’s responsible for all that harrowing business in the first place.”