Page 16 of A Perplexing Regency Romance (The League of Meddling Butlers #5)

Next to Finella, the duchess snorted and sipped her wine.

A butler and three footmen struggled to pull the curtains back from the stage, while two more footmen snuffed the candles of the candelabras set up round the room.

One lone chandelier stayed lit, and the ballroom took on a dim and ghostly mien.

Finella shivered despite herself and took a gulp of wine.

She worked to keep a grimace from her expression—it was so tart.

The curtains were pulled back to reveal Lady Thurston and four ladies who were also dressed in black bombazine. They stood round a coffin.

An actual coffin.

Finella almost dropped her glass at the sight of it. Lady Thurston stepped forward. “Behold, a funeral for a marriage.”

“Funeral for a marriage,” the four ladies whispered.

“Good grief,” the duchess muttered beside her.

“The union between two people is meant to be a genial thing,” Lady Thurston intoned. “It has every chance of being happy when two people deal fairly with one another.”

“Fairly,” the four ladies whispered.

“But when insults of the pin money and actress variety are forever hurled upon a fair lady’s head, it can only result in one ending. A funeral for a marriage.”

“Funeral. For a marriage,” the four ladies whispered.

Finella was horrified, though the duchesses’ shoulders were shaking with laughter.

Lady Thurston turned dramatically and pointed at the coffin. “The last rites have been read!” she shouted. “The vigil has ended! The black-bordered cards have been sent to alert all and sundry that the marriage is dead!”

“Mailed. Dead!” the four ladies said, sadly shaking their heads.

Finella found herself a bit frightened by this display. It might not be a real funeral, but it felt real. It also felt like tempting fate in some way.

“All that is left is the burial and a headstone that reads, “A dead marriage lies here—1786 to 1806.”

“1806,” the ladies whispered.

Finella gulped more of her wine. She did not care so much now that it was tart. She would have nightmares about this. She’d told the duchess she was prone to them in order to secure the room next door for Lucy. Now she would really have them.

And then, to increase the horror, the lid of the coffin was suddenly flung open of its own accord. Finella bit back a scream and dropped her glass. As her wine glass smashed on the floor, a man emerged from the depths of the coffin.

Finella was not the only one shocked. The audience gasped. Lady Thurston, herself, staggered back as if she’d seen a specter.

“Heaven help me,” the duchess said quietly. “It’s Lord Thurston.”

Lady Thurston’s husband had been hiding in the coffin the whole time? Certainly, Lady Thurston had not known it. Not by the look of utter shock in her expression. Neither had her lady friends known it, as they were slowly backing up with eyes wide.

Lord Thurston climbed out of the coffin.

Loudly he said, “I have a poetical tableau of my own this year since it is, after all, my own house. Despite my wife’s ramblings, there is no actress, the lady I am tied to for life has sufficient pin money, and I want my favorite chair back.

” He turned and pointed at Lady Thurston.

“You, madame, are deranged. Everyone, enjoy your evening!”

Lord Thurston leapt down from the stage, waved and smiled, and strode out of the room to stunned silence.

Lady Burberry, being a master of ceremonies of sorts, stepped forward. “Well goodness,” she said. Then she applauded so that everyone might know this spectacle had concluded. Lady Thurston was helped off the stage and out the ballroom doors by her ladies.

“That outdid anything my poor imagination could ever conjure,” the duchess said, laughing.

“Lord Thurston has reached his limit, I suppose. What a night.” She turned to Finella.

“Gracious, Miss Fernsby, you are white as a new snow. Do not be shocked over it, it was just nonsense between two people who do not know how to negotiate with one another and do not have the good sense to keep it private.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Finella said. “It just took me by surprise.”

“That display took everyone by surprise.”

The duke suddenly appeared. “Miss Fernsby, I did notice you dropped your glass. Do not move. You must not stand among the shards wearing only delicate ballroom slippers.”

Finella had almost forgotten that her glass had smashed on the ground over the startling emergence of Lord Thurston from the coffin.

The duchess peered down. “Yes, I see what you say, Duke. Miss Fernsby is surrounded by shards. We’ll need a footman with a broom.”

“I would not deem a broom sufficient,” the duke said.

“We all know that glass tends to leave slivers behind that are impossible to see. It must be swept and mopped. At least, I have reason to know it. Sir Edward has probably broken a dozen of my glasses and I have heard about it rather endlessly from my butler. Do not fear, Duchess, I will get the lady out.”

Before Finella could guess how the duke planned on getting her out, she was swept into his arms and gently set down on the ballroom floor, away from the glass.

“Duchess, I will give you a hand to get out the other direction, away from the glass,” the duke said.

Finella felt a bit woozy on her feet. Had she just seen a man leap from a coffin and then ended in the duke’s arms?

The duchess was got out of the box on the other side and she took Finella by the arm. “You seem a bit dazed, Miss Fernsby. Perhaps we will not stay to congratulate Lady Thurston. She usually takes a half hour with her ladies to recover herself, but I think it might be a deal longer this time.”

Finella nodded.

“I will see to it that your carriage is called,” the duke said, striding ahead.

“Miss Fernsby!”

The call came from behind her. Finella knew it was Sir Roger and she really did not wish to turn around. Perhaps she might pretend she did not hear him. She and the duchess were nearly at the doors.

“Miss Fernsby!” Sir Roger called, catching up to them. “Have you been hurt?”

“No, not at all,” Finella said.

“Well I did see the duke pick you up—”

“We are just going, Sir Roger,” the duchess said briskly.

“Indeed, as you should! That coffin was a shocking display. I would not permit a lady in my sphere to witness anything like it.”

The idea of living in Sir Roger’s sphere gave Finella a rather sick feeling.

The idea of Sir Roger holding dominion over her was awful.

It would never happen. She’d go home and become a spinster if this was her only choice.

She could live in her father’s house, and eventually her brother’s when he assumed the mantle of baron.

She’d take up work as a seamstress to pay her way.

Assuming she could learn to sew more proficiently than she currently could.

Still, to hear it said, to know he imagined it possible…

“We are not in your sphere, as far as I know it, Sir Roger,” the duchess said.

A footman opened the outer doors for them and Finella breathed in the cold air. The duke was holding the duchesses’ horses and her coachman was on the box, ready to go.

The groom got the door open and put down the step. The duchess pushed Finella ahead of her and she climbed in. Outside, she heard her say, “Duke, thank you for your assistance. Sir Roger.”

With that, the door was closed and the carriage set off.

What a night. She’d been confronted by Lady Gaddington, except Lady Gaddington had not known Finella knew what had been said at Almack’s.

She’d seen a positively hair-raising performance that had culminated in Lord Thurston jumping out of a coffin.

She’d been carried to safety, away from broken glass, in the duke’s arms. The evening was not at all what she’d imagined it would be.

She’d thought she was to see a tableau while admiring the duke from afar and hoping to meet someone more suitable to someone like herself.

Lucy was going to fall off her chair when she heard what had gone on.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Mr. Browning would know far less about the duke’s thoughts than he did if it were not for Sir Edward forever hanging round the duke’s drawing room. The duke told Sir Edward quite a lot and Browning made it a point to be nearby.

He did not think of it as spying. It was rather more a collecting of information to best protect the duke.

He’d been keeping his ears wide open since the duke was a boy and it had served them both well.

Once, when the duke was but eight years old, Mr. Browning had put a stop to a foolhardy plan he and Sir Edward had cooked up together.

The two of them had kept disappearing into an old outbuilding.

Then he'd overheard them discussing “the boat.” Browning was determined to investigate.

What he found was a lot of discarded wood nailed together in the vague shape of a crate and a sheet of paper inside it, detailing what it was about.

It had some ridiculous scrawl on it, like “figure out what to do about all the holes.” The rest of it was mostly a map.

They’d planned to launch this collection of old boards, with themselves in it, on the River Orwell to see if they could make it all the way to the English Channel!

A quiet word with the old duke had put a stop to it and the young marquess had not died in a tragic drowning incident thanks to Mr. Browning’s interference.

Just as he always did, he’d listened in on the conversation that was had after Lady Thurston’s poetical tableau.

Most of what he’d heard was raucous laughter over Lord Thurston popping out of a coffin.

Mr. Browning could not imagine what had gone on, but the unhappy union between Lord and Lady Thurston was not his problem.

What seemed to be his problem was that the duke had not developed the revulsion to Miss Fernsby that he’d been counting on.

Then he heard a bit of the conversation that chilled his heart.

“You caused no end of talk with your little maneuver,” Sir Edward said to the duke. “I imagine some of the gentlemen took note of it for future use, should they ever encounter a similar situation.”

“If you refer to ensuring Miss Fernsby did not cut her foot, then I would not call it a maneuver. The lady was in grave danger from broken glass and she has a rather lovely little foot.”

Sir Edward laughed raucously. “Grave danger, indeed. Well, in any case, it was a rare opportunity to sweep a lady into your arms without censure.”

“She is very soft all over,” the duke said, “though as a gentleman I suppose I should pretend not to have noticed.”

Into his arms? What in the world was Miss Fernsby doing in the duke’s arms? Why should that lady have a lovely foot? Why should she be soft?

“Sir Roger practically had steam coming from his ears,” Sir Edward said. “I believe he is on the hunt in that direction.”

“Old fool.”

The conversation had moved on to the re-creation of the poetical tableau that would proceed at The Devil’s Den, which Mr. Browning could not care less about. If the duke and his friends wished to mock Lady Thurston’s idea of what was poetical, it was all the same to him.

He had bigger problems. Somehow, there was no revulsion to Miss Fernsby developing.