Page 63

“ M y dears, the ton has gone mad.”

Emmeline inserted her thumb between the pages of the book she’d been pretending to read—poor Mr. Whateley again—and turned from her place on the window seat, where she’d been daydreaming for the better part of an hour.

Somehow, Mr. Whateley’s observations on convex and concave shapes of ground couldn’t quite hold her attention.

Juliet, who’d been staring as vacantly at the fire as Emmeline had been at the window, turned with a dismayed sigh. “Oh, no. What is it this time?”

“Why, only listen. Lord Batty grievously insulted Miss Goswick at his ball last night by inviting her to accompany him to his library!” Lady Fosberry lowered The Morning Gazette , her eyes wide over the top of the page.

“It seems he was convinced she is the Lady in Lavender, and therefore was already ruined!”

Lady Fosberry tossed The Gazette aside and snatched up The Times , tutting as she scanned the page. “Well, how ridiculous! As if the ton weren’t in enough of an uproar, Lord Cudworth now claims the gown the Lady in Lavender was wearing wasn’t lavender at all, but…”

Emmeline’s heart quickened as Lady Fosberry squinted down at the gossip section of the paper. She’d kept well out of sight at Lady Fosberry’s ball, but if it got about that the gown wasn’t a gown at all, and wasn’t lavender, but amethyst?—

“Periwinkle. Periwinkle! ” Lady Fosberry threw her hands up in the air in disgust. “Periwinkle and lavender aren’t a thing alike! Lord Cudworth is a very great fool, to be sure.”

“May I see it?” Juliet rose from the settee and plopped down beside Lady Fosberry, who handed over the paper. “Do you suppose he’s in love with the Lady in Lavender after a single encounter? It would be excessively romantic if he were.”

“If he was in love with her, wouldn’t he know her the moment he saw her again?”

The bitter edge to Emmeline’s voice made Juliet’s brows rise.

Dash it. Why couldn’t she keep her mouth closed?

“If he has seen her again, that is.” Emmeline swallowed. “I have no way of knowing if he has or not, of course, or anything else about it, really.”

Lady Fosberry frowned. “How should you, dearest?”

“The scandal is far too delicious for the ton to let it go now.” Juliet folded the paper and set it aside. “The only way to prevent a truly ugly outcome is for the Lady in Lavender to become betrothed to Lord Melrose before her identity is discovered.”

“Of course you’re right, my dear. Honestly, I don’t understand why the lady hasn’t made her identity known.” Lady Fosberry wrung her hands. “I don’t like to see a young lady ruined. Why do you suppose her family hasn’t come forward?”

“Perhaps they don’t know. She may not have told her family about her predicament.

” Emmeline tossed Mr. Whateley aside with more force than necessary.

“Perhaps she hasn’t told anyone at all, or else she did, and the family fled London for the country with plans to return next season, once the scandal dies down. ”

Lady Fosberry shook her head. “But surely anyone who knows Lord Melrose realizes he’ll do what is expected of any honorable gentleman who impugns a lady’s reputation.”

“Whether he’s in love with her or not, it’s clear he intends to marry her.” Juliet’s gaze was fixed on Emmeline. “If the Lady in Lavender were wise, she’d make herself known at once.”

“Make herself known, and marry a gentleman who doesn’t love her? A gentleman she trapped into marriage—whether inadvertently or not—who will likely resent her for it?”

Emmeline couldn’t say when love , of all things, had become so vitally important to a marriage when only weeks ago she would have said one thing hadn’t anything to do with the other.

Somehow, all that had changed.

“But of course she must marry him, dearest.” Lady Fosberry spoke as if it were perfectly obvious, and she wished the matter settled.

“Well, it strikes me as odd that the Lady in Lavender hasn’t come forward by now.” Juliet hadn’t taken her eyes off Emmeline. “It’s been three days! I tell you, there’s something strange about this business, my lady. What do you make of it, Emmeline?”

“I, ah…I hardly know. I’m at as much of a loss as you both are.” Emmeline didn’t dare look at her sister, but she could feel Juliet’s gaze still boring into her, so intense it was a wonder her hair didn’t burst into flames.

“Well, I can’t help but admire the Lady in Lavender, though an amorous encounter with Lord Melrose in the middle of a ball was a remarkably foolish thing to do. Remarkably foolish. Don’t you think it was a remarkably foolish thing to do, Emmeline?”

Emmeline squirmed in her seat. “Er, as to that, I daresay it wasn’t?—”

“I begin to think you were right, Lady Fosberry, about the unpredictable nature of people. Why, the most unexpected events might yet occur before the season’s over. Don’t you agree about the unexpected events, Emmeline?”

The look Juliet gave Emmeline sent a rush of heat into Emmeline’s cheeks, and she slumped down in her seat, wishing Lady Fosberry’s plump window cushions would devour her.

“Still, I can’t imagine what could have come over the Lady in Lavender. She’s either very brave, or very foolish. Emmeline, can you imagine what might have come over the Lady in Lavender?”

“No. How should I?” Emmeline turned back toward the window to avoid the knowing look in Juliet’s eyes.

“Do stop teasing your sister, Juliet. She looks a trifle peaked. Are you quite all right, dear?”

“Just a slight headache, my lady,” Emmeline muttered, squeezing her eyes closed.

“I daresay you’ve had too much sun this morning.

Come away from the window, child.” Lady Fosberry patted the seat beside her on the settee.

“For my part, I think the Lady in Lavender need not despair entirely of a love match. There’s a desperation to Lord Melrose’s search for her that hints at something more than duty.

I think he cares for the lady, and that’s why?—”

“I beg your pardon, my lady.” Watkins, Lady Fosberry’s butler, came into the drawing room. “Lady Dingley and Lady Christine are here, and they’re quite anxious to speak to you.”

Lady Fosberry’s eyes shot into her hairline. “Are they, indeed? Well, by all means, Watkins, show them in. My goodness,” Lady Fosberry whispered after Watkins left the room. “What do you suppose they want?”

Juliet rolled her eyes. “I don’t dare speculate.”

A moment later Lady Dingley and Lady Christine swept into the drawing room and crowded onto the settee across from Lady Fosberry, neither of them offering so much as a nod to either Emmeline or Juliet.

They may as well not have been in the room, for all the notice Lady Dingley and her daughter took of them.

Lady Fosberry frowned, but she greeted Lady Dingley with forced cordiality. “My dear Lady Dingley, how do you do?”

“Why, we’re perfectly awful, Lady Fosberry! My palpitations are so dreadful I could hardly drag myself out of bed this morning, and only look at my poor, dear Christine! Lord Melrose has broken her heart. He’s a scoundrel, make no mistake.”

If Lady Christine had looked the least bit heartbroken, Emmeline would have felt quite guilty, indeed, but there was no sorrow in those pretty blue eyes, no grief in the sullen pinch of her rosebud lips.

Lady Christine wasn’t heartbroken. She was furious .

“Naturally, we came directly to you, my lady. I daresay I shouldn’t be abroad at all in my sad condition, but I told Christine we simply must come to see you.

‘Christine,’ I said to her this morning, ‘We must go and see Lady Fosberry.’ The ton is laughing at us, but I knew you would never abandon us in our hour of need. ”

Lady Fosberry blinked, taken aback by this sudden display of tender affection from Lady Dingley. “Er, yes, of course. I’m happy to help, Lady Dingley, only I don’t know what I can do.”

“Why, you can tell me the name of every young lady who attended your ball the other night,” Lady Dingley exclaimed, as if it were all perfectly obvious.

“I beg your pardon,” Lady Fosberry said coolly. “But I don’t see how that will improve matters.”

“You don’t suppose we’re going to allow this so-called Lady in Lavender, or Lady in Periwinkle, or whatever godforsaken color Cudworth has decided upon today to destroy my poor Christine’s happiness, do you?

We mean to see her brought to account! Christine would be the Countess of Melrose by now if it weren’t for that harlot! ”

Emmeline gasped, appalled. Lord Cross had warned them it would come to this, but to hear such venom spewing directly from Lady Dingley’s lips was distressing, indeed.

“Forgive me, Lady Dingley, but Lord Melrose has had the entire season to offer for your daughter. If he intended to do so, surely he’d have done it by now.” Juliet appeared calm, but Emmeline recognized the flush on her sister’s cheeks for the fury it was.

Lady Christine didn’t deign to reply, but her cold blue gaze shot to Juliet’s face, her eyes narrowing to slits.

“I’m afraid it’s out of the question, Lady Dingley.” Lady Fosberry’s had gone from cool to icy.

Lady Dingley had been dabbing a lace-edged handkerchief to her eyes, but her tears dried on her cheeks in a burst of hot anger at Lady Fosberry’s refusal. “I can’t imagine what reason you’d have to refuse us, unless…”

For the first time since she’d sailed through the door, Lady Dingley seemed to become aware that Emmeline and Juliet were in the room. Her livid gaze went from one to the other of them, then back again. “Unless you already know the lady’s name, and wish to keep it a secret?”

Lady Fosberry’s face went so red Emmeline actually leapt to her feet. “My lady?—”

“I beg your pardon, Lady Fosberry.” Watkins entered, his face remaining as blank as any well-trained servant’s did when he came upon his mistress in a towering fury. “Lord Melrose and Lord Cross are here.”