Page 8 of Lady Impatience (A Series of Senseless Complications #3)

Patience was exceedingly buoyed by the dinner. Her family really showed their best sides and Lord Stanford could not help but to be impressed. There were moments where she thought he was positively gobsmacked. Even Nelson had been on his best behavior and had not released the noxious fumes that sometimes overtook him, especially after eating.

Most importantly, she did not detect any particular interest between Lord Stanford and Lady Alice. Lord Radner had spent far more time entertaining that lady than Lord Stanford had.

Sitting so close next to him had been glorious. If she leaned just the littlest bit closer, which she did on several occasions, the air felt warmer, as if there was heat coming from him. His scent was of oakmoss and orange blossom.

She looked forward to getting even closer to him than she had been able to manage at table. In truth, she had taken on the habit of thinking about that circumstance well into the night before she fell asleep.

Everything was falling into place. Now they were to play Fact or Fib and she expected to gather even more information. If she knew her sisters at all, they would press Lord Stanford regarding his inclinations.

The ladies had repaired to the drawing room and, as was her father’s usual procedure, the gentleman had not stayed long at table. The duke had ordered the bottles brought in and Patience thought that surely Lord Stanford perceived how comfortable a habit it was.

Serenity and Winsome had dragged chairs from all corners of the drawing room to make a circle round the table. Verity piled the yellow and blue tickets in the center.

“I should go first,” Valor said, “because I get tired very suddenly and I never know when it will happen.”

“Go on, girl,” the duke said.

“Lord Stanford,” Valor said.

Patience held her breath. Here was the first question for Lord Stanford.

“Do you think it could be true that foxes can sound like women being murdered?”

Patience let out her breath in a disappointed sigh. The screams on the moors were forever on Valor’s mind. She could not be convinced that the sounds were from a fox. She had even once consulted the vicar, who assured her it was a fox. Valor had then accused him of being involved in the murders.

“It is true,” Lord Stanford said. “I believe what you have heard is a vixen scream. Unsettling if one is not used to hearing it.”

“Fib!” Valor cried, throwing a blue ticket at the lord.

“But it’s not—”

Lord Stanford was not given the chance to say what it was not. The duke cut him off. “Never mind it, Stanford. This is why we bring the brandy in. We men are on a sinking ship with no rescue boats in sight.”

“Fib!” Valor shouted, handing her father his first blue ticket.

“I’ll go,” Winsome said. “Lady Alice, have you fallen in love with anybody yet?”

Lady Alice looked to the floor, her cheeks burning as brightly as newly lit kindling. “No,” she mumbled.

Patience leapt up. “Fact! Though she probably will fall in love with someone who makes her laugh.” She snatched a yellow ticket and handed it to her friend.

“Lord Stanford,” Grace said, “what was the first thing you noticed about Patience?”

“Here we go,” Mr. Stratton muttered.

Patience hurried to her seat and attempted a look of unconcern. Mr. Stratton was right. Here we did go. What would Lord Stanford say?

“Oh, well, as to that,” Lord Stanford said. “I suppose, well, it was probably a sense of liveliness.”

Grace, Serenity, and Winsome shouted together. “Fib!”

“It’s her hair,” Valor said, laughing a little hysterically, like she did when she was overtired. “There’s so much of it.”

“I see,” the lord said quietly.

What did he mean? Her sense of liveliness? As opposed to what? A sense of deadliness? He could have chosen so many other things to notice—her hair, her eyes, her complexion. She did not understand what he meant. Did he not think her pretty?

The game went on, with Lord Radner accused of fibbing when he claimed he was not in love. Then the judgment against him was revised when he explained that he hoped to be in love and his blue ticket was traded out for a yellow ticket. The duke was asked about his sorrow at losing daughters to marriage, as it had become a tradition for him to claim he was delighted and be instantly denounced as a fibber. Valor was eventually sent to bed for accusing them all of fibbing about the foxes, throwing blue tickets at everybody, and then weeping over her outburst.

It all went on amusingly, but for Lord Stanford’s answer. Liveliness. What did it mean?

He was so confusing. She knew he looked at her a lot—why would he only come up with liveliness? It was the sort of compliment an older matron might give to an exceedingly plain girl. It was the sort of compliment one made when one was hard-pressed to come up with anything.

The party eventually broke up and there was the usual bustle in the hall as coats were retrieved and carriages called. Felicity leaned over to Patience and said, “I believe he only needs a little prompting.”

“Really?” Patience whispered back.

Felicity nodded. “His answer was nonsensical, but I kept a close eye on him. He was often looking at you.”

Patience felt a wave of relief upon hearing it. Her instincts could not have been wrong, even though it had seemed for a moment that they might be. He only needed prompting.

She just must figure out how a lady went about prompting, as she did not know the first thing about it. She would ask the duke about it, as she was certain her father would have heard of such a thing.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Just before Marcus’ carriage had departed the duke’s house a footman had come running out with a fan in his hand. The boy looked up and down the road and audibly sighed.

“Lady Alice left her fan,” he said.

“No matter, we can return it on the morrow,” Marcus said. “We are to visit a friend on her square, it will be an easy matter to drop it off.”

They were to see Kendrickson on the morrow and he, as well as Lady Alice, lived on Bedford Square.

“Thank you, my lord,” he said, handing over the fan. The footman paused, then said, “I hope you don’t have the wrong idea about that butler in there. He’ll be leaving soon. What I mean is, it weren’t usual for him to drink wine at the sideboard.”

With that, the footman turned and jogged back into the house.

Marcus rapped on the roof and the carriage set off. Radner sat across from Marcus with an amused smile on his face.

“Well, well, well,” Radner said.

Marcus looked at him quizzically. “Well, what?”

“Despite your carefully composed ideas of who would suit you, Lady Alice is out of the running.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Come now, Stanford, you did not look once in that lady’s direction the entire time we were in the drawing room.”

“Nonsense, I am sure I did.”

“I am sure you did not. It was all eyes on Lady Patience. As well, if you did have an interest, you would not have agreed to return her fan. Your caution and go slowly flags would have been raised up the mast and flap in a brisk wind. But, having no interest in her, it seemed a small matter.”

“I believe you are being both illogical and dramatic. In any case, if I did on occasion look toward Lady Patience, we were in her house.”

“Her rather deranged house. You see? That’s what’s so funny about it. The younger ladies at table, the odd conversation, the three-legged dog under the table, the incompetent butler, Fact or Fib with the youngest of them throwing tickets in our faces over a fox—none of it aligns with your measured ideas.”

“They are an unusual household.”

“The most unusual, as far as I can tell. Very amusing that you would go for precisely what you thought you did not want.”

“Go for? Radner, I would appreciate it if you would keep your wild imaginings to yourself.”

Radner shrugged and looked out the window.

Surely, he had looked in Lady Alice’s direction as often as Lady Patience’s direction. Or perhaps he had not.

The whole evening had been exceedingly odd. And yet, he was drawn to Lady Patience. As for her family, they were entirely eccentric. And yet, there was an underlying something to it. An ease, a confidence in one another as if none of them could step too far wrong in the others’ eyes.

Even when Lady Valor had a complete breakdown in civility and thrown the tickets at them, the duke had not been angry. Rather, he’d laughed and said she was overtired. The housekeeper had bustled in and took the young lady to bed with all sorts of soothing words and the promise that Mrs. Wendover, the stuffed rabbit, was already waiting for her.

If his family had been all hard angles and sharp glass, the duke’s household was an eccentric feather pillow.

The teasing that went on between them, the daughters all denouncing their father a fibber for claiming he wished to be rid of them… that was a different sort of relationship than he’d ever imagined existed. It was as if they all stood on the solid ground of understanding and could therefore venture into teasing without fear.

Would he be the sort of father who could tease his children, or just laugh when one of them lost all manners from being overtired, or who did not blink when a three-legged dog suddenly turned up?

He did not know. But he was beginning to think he might like to be. He’d been a deeply unhappy child, but the duke’s children all marched round as if the world must surely approve of them. There must be something in that.

Should he take the risk of pursuing a lady like Lady Patience? Or rather, should he take the risk of pursuing Lady Patience herself, as he did not suppose there was another like her.

He wanted to. He wanted to since first laying eyes on her. His caution had done its best to steer him away.

“I only say,” Radner said, “the heart will rule the head.”

Marcus did not answer. Radner might be right, but he was loathe to admit that Radner might be right.

In any case, no immediate decisions need be made. If he were to pursue Lady Patience, and he began to think he would, he could still proceed carefully and moderately. There was no need to transform himself into a different person. Despite Radner’s opinions, the heart would do well to take a dose of sense from the head.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Kendrickson stared at his two friends. Stanford and Radner had come to see him on Bedford Square to discuss how he might be let into White’s without the fees associated with the membership. Stanford was willing to front him the fees, though he was reluctant to agree to it.

However, that was not at all what he wished to talk about this moment. He’d seen from his drawing room window Stanford dismount at Lady Alice’s house while Radner rode on to his. Then Radner arrived and explained that Stanford was returning a left behind fan from the evening before.

Stanford had been inside the lady’s house for a quarter of an hour.

“First,” he said to Stanford after he’d finally arrived, “did it not occur to you to bring the fan here and then I could return it? You know I have an interest there.”

“That idea is absurd,” Stanford said. “You weren’t there last evening. How would you explain how you came into possession of it?”

Kendrickson waved his hands. “Simple enough, I might have said no end of things. I might have said you were planning to walk it over from here, but you twisted your ankle.”

“I twisted my ankle?” Stanford said, sounding mortally offended. “I am not an old lady, I do not twist ankles.”

“Something could have been devised.” Kendrickson narrowed his eyes. “But perhaps you did not wish to devise anything. Perhaps you have an interest in Lady Alice yourself.”

“He does not,” Radner said. “He’s all in for Lady Patience.”

“I am not all in, as you so charmingly term it,” Stanford said. “Furthermore, I offered to return the fan, which is what I set out to do. I was not planning on going in, but Lady Kembleford heard the door and insisted I come in and then she was having tea with Lady Marchfield, and they are both talkers.”

“Ah,” Radler said, “Lady Marchfield is Lady Patience’s aunt. I hope you made a good impression.”

At this, Stanford suddenly looked uncomfortable. “I did not mean to make any impression, as I did not plan on going in. As I was forced in, I attempted some pleasantries and mentioned the dinner last evening. Lady Marchfield appeared positively irate about it. She did not seem to know anything of it, and I suspect she is furious with the duke for failing to invite her.”

“Gad, you put your foot in it,” Radler said.

“But you really do not have designs on Lady Alice?” Kendrickson said.

“I do not have designs on anybody,” Stanford said.

“Yes, he does,” Radler said, “Lady Patience. He’s just not admitting it yet.”

Kendrickson could care less what the state of Stanford’s feelings were at the moment, as long as they did not drift toward Lady Alice. Even if she were not well funded he would wish to pursue the lady. However, if that had been the case, he would not pursue her. Not to shield himself from financial ruin, but to shield her . He would not for the world injure her. He would also not for the world look upon another lady as he did Lady Alice.

“Has she given you any hint that she might favor you?” Radler asked him.

“I think so, at least I hope so. We both attended Lady Peregrine’s scavenger hunt for charity two days ago and I helped her unravel the clues. We got on very well, she finds me amusing, I think.”

“I did not realize Lady Alice was very fond of being amused,” Radler said.

Kendrickson did not mention the note he’d received that had given him that hint, the note he was certain had been sent by Lady Patience. “Well, I believe she is.”

In truth, he was sure she was. Once he’d allowed his natural buoyancy and joking manner to surface, it was as if things between them bloomed. He joked and she laughed and they’d had a very merry time of it.

He was certain things between them would continue to bloom as long as some other fellow did not get in the way. He would see her again on the morrow at Lady Jellerbey’s candlelight picnic. So would Radner and Stanford and every other eligible gentleman. They must all just stay out of the way.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It was the late afternoon and Patience and her father were having a confidential conversation in his library.

“I do not think you should fret over it,” the duke said. “He is a cautious man and will take his time.”

“How much time though?” Patience asked. “Felicity says he needs prompting. How does one go about prompting?

Her proclivity for moving things forward had haunted her all day. This evening was Lady Jellerbey’s candlelight picnic. Certainly he would be there. But what would he say and do there?

The duke laughed and said, “As to prompting, I have sent my own message on the matter. I sent over a bottle of molasses, unsigned. We’ll see if he takes the hint.”

“Oh I see, because he is as slow as molasses,” Patience said, laughing despite herself. “I suppose I can tolerate slow, as long as he is slowly moving in my direction. You see, he must be, Papa. I just know it is right. I knew the moment I saw him that it was right. Why doesn’t he know it too?”

“He might know it, somewhere in his mind. Acting on it is another thing. Not everybody barrels through life as you do.”

Patience nodded at the truth of it.

Mrs. Right came into the library with a tray of small cakes. “These have just been cooled and iced. Cook was certain you would care for them.”

“Indeed we would,” the duke said.

Before Mrs. Right had even a chance to set them down, they heard a commotion in the hall. “Do not lie to me, young man! I checked the stables first and his carriage is still in it.”

Patience stared at the door. It was her aunt and she sounded furious.

The duke sighed. “Lady Misery comes to call and darken a perfectly good day.”

The lady herself came sailing through the doors. “Roland, I am insulted down to my shoes.”

The duke laughed. “I’m getting very good at it then, as I’ve not even hurled an insult yet. But do not worry, I am sure I will.”

“I was forced to discover that my own brother held a dinner party without bothering to invite me. It was humiliating.”

Patience could not imagine how she’d heard of it. She was not meant to hear of it. Patience and her sisters had no wish to outright insult their aunt. It was just that… they did not want her to come to dinner because of all the scolding and frowning.

“You were not forced to discover anything. I had a dinner party, that is all,” the duke said.

“Lord Marchfield was just as insulted.”

“Was he? Then I suspect he was stuck with your company and irritated that he could not have pawned you off on me. I’ve told him a thousand times, when you finally give her the slip, do not launch her in my direction!”

“There I was, having tea with Lady Kembleford,” Lady Marchfield said, as if the duke had said nothing at all, “when Lord Stanford arrived to bring Lady Alice a fan. Naturally, Lady Kembleford urged him to come in despite Lady Alice being out. There, he mentioned he’d been to dinner at this very house the evening before!”

A fan? Why would Lord Stanford bring Lady Alice a fan?

“It was a very small party,” the duke said. “Just my girls, Stanford, Radner, and Lady Alice. I invited Stanford and Radner and Patience invited Lady Alice. Nobody, it seems, invited you!”

Lady Marchfield sighed and turned to Patience. “My dear, this is where you require womanly advice. You have a preference for Lord Stanford. That is right?”

Patience nodded, her thoughts still taken up by the fan.

“Yes, as I thought. Now, it was the most foolish thing in the world to invite Lady Alice, which I could have told you. She is comely and well-funded and you provided them extended time together. Now you see the result of it—Lord Stanford did not waste a moment before calling upon Lady Alice bearing a gift.”

“Now listen here, Lady Misery, do not go spreading your gloom and doom to my girls,” the duke said. “Be off with you.”

Lady Marchfield sniffed. She glanced at Mrs. Right. “I suppose you sing a different tune these days, Mrs. Right. I expect Mr. Grimsby has taken things well in hand.”

Mrs. Right nodded gravely. “He’s a stern taskmaster,” she said.

Lady Marchfield, with a gleam of victory in her eye, said, “As I thought. Patience, stop taking your father’s terrible advice. If you need advice, turn to me. Perhaps things are not yet set with Lady Alice. Perhaps there is still time to turn things in your direction. You know my address.”

With that, she spun on her heel and marched out of the room. They heard the front doors slam shortly after.

Patience slumped in her chair. “Why would Lord Stanford rush over to Lady Alice’s house to give her a fan?”

The duke shrugged. “Who knows? I would not read too much into it. Lady Misery is a master at making mountains from mole hills. You will see Stanford this evening and take his measure.”

Mrs. Right did not look so sanguine, which Patience was afraid meant she thought the fan was very bad news.

The lady laid her hand on Patience shoulder. “I certainly hope Lord Stanford is made of better stuff than what this looks like,” she said.

Patience could not say. It looked very terrible. Why else would a gentleman buy a fan for a lady?

He’d not bought a fan or flowers or anything for Patience.

What if it were not the first thing he’d bought for Lady Alice? He might have sent flowers. After all, she only discovered the fan by happenstance.

Or perhaps there was a reason for it? Perhaps Lady Alice had made some hint that she needed a new fan and then he’d felt obligated?

And then, Lady Alice wished to be her friend, certainly she would not set her sights on Lord Stanford. But perhaps Patience had not made clear her preferences. Lady Alice might not understand them at all.

Or perhaps Patience was only emulating her aunt and making mountains of molehills. She must keep in mind that nothing was positively known yet, but for the delivery of a fan.

She must keep good thoughts in her mind or she would cry.