Page 30 of A Perplexing Regency Romance (The League of Meddling Butlers #5)

Sir Roger clearly did not care to be questioned by a maid.

Or insulted, for that matter. He ignored Lucy and said, “Miss Fernsby, you ought not have to put up with such effronteries from a servant and I can assure you that you will not do so in my household. My servants are courteous, or they are out on the road.”

“I’m never going to be in your house,” Finella said boldly. It was rather terrifying to defy Sir Roger, but she must make herself clear. This had gone too far. He had gone too far. It was horrifying that he had been watching the house.

She thought he would be very angry. Instead, he laughed. “Miss Fernsby,” he said in a condescending tone. “What other opportunities will you have? If I were a younger man, I would not bother to look in your direction. As it is, I require an heir so I must put up with it.”

Finella was shocked to her shoes. Put up with it. She was so repulsed by this man. This old man. She stood motionless.

Lucy, on the other hand, did not stand motionless. She used her parasol to hit Sir Roger about the head.

At first, she’d taken him by surprise and she’d landed several sharp blows. She even knocked his hat off and mussed his thinning hair. But then he began to fight back and wrestled the parasol from her hands.

“Run!” Lucy said.

Finella picked up her skirts and ran, with Lucy’s pounding steps behind her. Finella was terrified to even look over her shoulder to see if Sir Roger was chasing them. He might be, he really was a monster of sorts.

They reached the doors and flung them open. Finella shut them and slid the bolt for good measure. They turned round, heaving in breaths.

Wagner stood in the hall staring at them.

Lucy said, “That Sir Roger was out there pestering and insulting Miss Fernsby. We had to run away from him.”

Wagner’s expression grew very dark.

Finella thought they ought to spell out the whole truth of it. “We ran away after we hit him with a parasol, I’m afraid.”

“ I hit ‘em,” Lucy said, “though kind of my mistress to try to share the blame. I had to leave that parasol behind, too. I was forced to wallop him after he insulted my mistress from here to Sunday. Maybe I shouldn’t have done it, but maybe I should have. We’ll never know.”

Wagner nodded approvingly at Lucy, which rather surprised Finella. She would have thought he’d rather disapprove of a lady’s maid hitting a lord over the head with a parasol.

“Miss Fernsby, Sir Roger will never pass through these doors again. If he dares a knock, he will end sorry over it. I will inform the duchess of this new development. Lucy, excellent work.”

Lucy bobbed a curtsy at the compliment. Finella thought Lucy was rather outrageous, but she also thought nobody in the world had ever had such a stalwart maid.

There had been more than one occasion where Finella had been very glad Lucy was on her side.

This occasion had only been the most violent of them.

They had left Wagner to manage things, and Finella was relieved that the butler would outline to the duchess what had occurred.

She would be satisfied if she never had to speak of it.

She and Lucy jogged up the stairs and looked out Finella’s window.

They watched Sir Roger come around to their side of the square, dusting off his hat.

He gave a terrible look to the house, and got in his carriage.

He was gone. Finella presumed it was for good. After all, there was no coming back with any dignity after being beaten round the head with a parasol by a lady’s maid.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Hugh was in receipt of the Duchess of Ralston’s seven sealed letters and the list of twenty ladies to choose from.

If other years were anything to go by, there would be some gentlemen staring at the letters, very much wishing to know what was written inside them.

Hugh did not want to know. He did not want to hear himself mentioned at the party.

He wanted to slip in and out under cover of darkness like a thief in the night. Like he’d never been there at all.

He had been wrestled into it last year too, as had Seddie.

He’d visited ladies he was friendly with, but they were ladies who would not read anything into being visited.

At the party, he’d come through unscathed as nothing that had been written about him had been read aloud.

The question the ladies were to answer had been what spice or flavor would the gentleman be and why.

He never found out what anybody had written about him, but it was not deemed interesting enough to be read aloud and he’d been more than satisfied with that outcome.

This year was different though. He must see Miss Fernsby and see what she would say.

The difficulty was he’d have no chance of explaining himself before she wrote something.

The rules were specific—the lady and the gentleman were not to speak at all.

As Miss Fernsby was in the duchesses’ house, that would be strictly enforced.

She would answer the duchesses’ question before knowing he’d meant to show a yellow shawl, not a green one.

Was she disappointed? Irritated? Angry, even? He’d gone so far as to ask her color and then he’d not shown it. Maybe she thought he’d gone round and asked a dozen ladies about their colors and then just picked between them. She would think him a cad, if that was what she believed.

He’d sent daffodils and a note asking for a new start.

Now, though, he wondered how that would be taken.

Might she think it meant that he’d gone one way with a green shawl and now changed his mind and went the other way?

A lady might think a gentleman very unreliable to do it, as what assurance would she have that the fellow would not change his mind again?

A lady could not be comfortable with a man who did not know his own mind.

The other difficulty was the wheeled chair.

It was going to be a rather grueling day for the staff attending him.

At seven different stops, he would have to be carried out of the carriage, put in the chair, wheeled in, wheeled out, put back in the carriage, and the chair tied to the back of the carriage again.

He’d have to give them an extra day off or money or something to soothe their irritation over it.

They would not show they were irritated, but Browning had long ago educated him on how it all came out at the servants’ table, to be discussed in detail.

If there was one bright spot, Lady Violet was not included on the list of twenty ladies.

The Duchess of Ralston had very astute judgment, so Hugh presumed the lady had deemed Lady Violet not quite ready for such a game.

Packington had brought his sister to Town too soon, that much was clear.

She was a coquettish child who ought to be still under the supervision of a governess.

Of course, Packington might not see it that way. Hugh was bracing himself to hear from him about what was said at the prince’s party.

Hugh had written out the seven ladies he would visit, with Miss Fernsby being the first. His coachman would determine the most sensible route around Town.

He did not know what the question would be, nor how Miss Fernsby would answer, but he would find it out tonight.

He would bring one of his footmen with him this evening so he would not be at the whim of whoever decided to push him hither and thither.

At the earliest possible moment, he would be pushed in Miss Fernsby’s direction.

At least Browning had made several improvements to his incapacitated situation.

The Merlin chair was being built so that Hugh could wheel himself, though that would not come for another week or so.

In the meantime, Browning had re-covered the pink satin chair in brown leather and painted over the pink and green on the back, which was vastly more suitable.

Perhaps the most ambitious of the projects to ease his recovery was due to the prince.

Hugh’s method of getting up and down the stairs was entirely changed.

His Royal Highness had sent members of the Royal Engineers to build and install a chair that used ropes and pullies to go up and down between floors.

The head engineer had shown Browning a book that contained illustrations of Henry VIII’s stair throne as a model.

The men had been all efficiency and had the thing set up in a day.

It was hair-raising the first time Hugh tried it, especially since the footmen had yet to get the hang of it and there had been a drop of ten feet as he plummeted down to the great hall before they got control of it, but it did work well enough.

Now he had gone down to the great hall in the stair throne, been carried to the carriage, and set off.

He might not be able to talk to Miss Fernsby as he brought in the duchesses’ paper, but he hoped for at least a glimpse.

A glimpse of Finella , as he’d begun to think of her.

He’d recently discovered that her given name was Finella.

It was very apt. It sounded soft, just as she was.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This was it. Finella was confined to the small drawing room to wait out the Secrets Exposed letters until four o’clock.

Either nobody would come and she would be humiliated, or somebody would come and she would have to think of what flower they would be as a husband. Either outcome was nerve-wracking.

The duchess had been kind enough to allow Lucy to sit with her, else she would have been a hopeless mess of fidgets and pacing.

They had a tea tray in and Finella had made good use of the biscuits and petit fours, as that always calmed her and made her more cheerful. Lucy was pouring her a second cup of tea when there was a knock on the door.

Finella felt frozen in her seat. Wagner entered with a letter on a silver salver. One of the letters. A Secrets Exposed letter.

“Told ya,” Lucy said, hopping up and taking the letter.

Wagner said, “Miss Fernsby, this has been brought by Sir Edward Bromley.”

Finella nodded and Wagner closed the door behind him. Finella stared down at the letter Lucy had just put in her hands.

“I reckon you better open it,” Lucy said. “The fellow has to wait until you reply, don’t he?”

“Oh no, that happens to all the other ladies, because the gentleman has to return his letters to the duchess.”

“Ah, so here she just sends him on his way.”

Finella nodded.

“Well I suppose you best open it anyway. Got to be done, sooner or later.”

“Yes, I imagine you’re right.” She tore the paper open. It said as she had been told, what sort of flower would this gentleman be as a husband and why. “Gracious, what am I to say about Sir Edward?”

Lucy tapped her chin. “He’s the one that tried to drown the duke? Twice? He sounds a dangerous fellow to my mind.”

Finella could not help but agree with that assessment. The duke had ended in a wheeled chair on account of Sir Edward.

Lucy suddenly laughed. “He’s Wolfsbane, ain’t he? If one is not careful around him, they’ll end up dead.”

“Oh that’s very good. So much more clever than anything I could come up with.”

She dipped her pen in ink and wrote: He is Wolfsbane, as he almost killed the duke. She dusted it and shook it. Once the ink was dry, she refolded the paper and used the duchesses’ seal to close it.

Finella let out a breath. A gentleman had come, and thanks to Lucy she had an amusing response.

It was the best outcome she could have imagined.

Nobody else need come, one was enough. She’d done her duty by the duchess.

She laid the letter in the little basket the duchess had provided for completed letters.

“There, that was not so hard,” Lucy said.

“Not for you, perhaps. I cannot think up things like that. Especially not so fast.”

“You’ll be the queen of the quips the minute somebody needs to be called an asparagus, though. Nobody will think of it quicker. Or at all.”

They both devolved into giggles as it really was quite ridiculous. Finella Fernsby would never be an acclaimed wit unless naming a person an asparagus was suddenly deemed the height of it.

There was another knock on the door. Wagner entered with another letter. Finella stared at Lucy. She was not certain she had been hoping for more than one visitation.

“From the Duke of Greystone, Miss Fernsby,” Wagner said.