Page 10 of Lady Liar (A Series of Senseless Complications #5)

W insome had paled and set down the paper. She claimed she could not read the very thing Verity needed to know about. Winsome had to read it, as she herself really could not read it. How could it be too horrible to read? What was in it that would set off Serenity?

Serenity had whipped round from the shelves. “Why? What does it say? Was something done to the bees?”

“It’s about slow-moving creatures, Serenity,” Winsome said, attempting to ease her sister’s worry. “Bees are fast-moving, one can hardly see them sometimes, they fly so fast.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Serenity said.

They all knew well enough of Serenity’s care of bees and her devastation when she found one dead in a garden, which she seemed to always be looking for.

Of course, they’d only recently discovered that she’d kept all the dead bees she’d found in a wood box, and that Lord Thorpe had built a proper crypt for them in their garden at home.

Verity and Winsome had privately agreed that Lord Thorpe must be off his head in love with Serenity to have done it.

“But then,” Serenity said, clearly thinking things through, “do you say some slow-moving animal was hurt? I am not certain what constitutes a slow-moving animal. Is it a poor old animal who cannot move as fast as he once could? I should just die to know it! Our dear Nelson only has three legs and he’s blind in one eye—he can be slow-moving and he’s not even old! ”

Serenity was already springing water out of her eyes, as was her nature. It was as if she had a well inside her eyeballs and could pump the water at will.

“Serenity,” Winsome said, “Nothing has happened to Nelson. He is safe and sound at your house, lying around somewhere with Lord Thorpe’s mastiff, like he always is.

Why don’t you go to the drawing room and see how Valor and Sir Galahad get on with their card game?

Put all this science talk out of your mind and think no more about it. ”

Serenity nodded. “That would be best, I think. As she made her way to the door, she said, “Though I cannot help that my imagination is conjuring something very terrible.”

“No, no,” Winsome said soothingly, “it’s not that bad. Really, it is not.”

Serenity nodded and closed the door behind her. Verity stared at Winsome, entirely forgetting about her cold compress.

Winsome said, “It really is that bad.”

“What? What could be bad in a dusty old paper from the Royal Society?”

Winsome picked up the paper. It says here that this John Symmons sent a Maucauco to this Mr. Carlisle for, well, for a…dissection.”

“A monkey? For a dissection?” Verity said, hardly believing her own ears.

“Verity, you cannot wish to be like these people! They cut open a monkey!”

This was ghastly indeed.

“Does Lord Wembly cut up monkeys?”

“He did not say,” Verity said. “I’m sure not.

I’m sure he only reads about other people who did.

” At least she hoped that was true, as even that was horrifying.

No wonder Lord Wembly looked so shocked when she posited that she was researching the matter.

It was not preposterous enough to be conducting scientific experiments, but for a lady to be reading such horrors…

Winsome went on with reading the paper. Then she gasped. “You will not believe it—this Carlisle fellow sent the cut-up monkey with the paper to Mr. Symmons.”

“No.”

“Indeed, it says right here.”

“What else?”

Winsome went on to read the entirety of the paper, occasionally gasping. It seemed the Maucauco was not the only victim of Mr. Carlisle’s. There was also mention of an American sloth and a lion.

As if all that were not horrifying enough, the paper concluded with detailed drawings.

Verity fanned herself. Winsome had turned white.

“Serenity can never find out anything about this,” Winsome said.

“Agreed,” Verity said. She rather wished she herself had never found out anything about it.

“We should get rid of this paper and wipe it out of our memories.”

Verity was not opposed to that idea. But then she said, “Wait, what were the conclusions, though? What was anybody supposed to know about…all this?”

“Nothing very important, I’m sure. The fellow just keeps pointing out that the circulatory systems are different.”

All that, just to know that animals were different?

“Verity, you should give this up. I do not know what Lord Wembly has been up to, but even if he has not been…what Mr. Carlisle has been doing. You cannot pretend at an interest in this.”

“I wish I did not have to, I really do,” Verity said. “But I very stupidly backed myself into a corner and now I have no choice. I will just do it enough to prove that I do know something about it, then I will drop it and pick up another interest. Like netting a purse.”

“You really like Lord Wembly that much?”

“I think so. I do not wish to appear foolish in his eyes.”

Winsome sighed. “All right, lady scientist. You know we’ll all back you up. But really, Verity, I’ve been telling you for years to stop inventing things.”

“Well, it’s too late now!” Verity said, feeling irked to have it pointed out.

Winsome ripped up the paper and threw the bits into the unlit fireplace. “What should we tell Patience when she gets back?”

“Um, maybe that we have uncovered enough of what…has gone on so far. Scientifically. Without mentioning the details.”

“I never want to mention the details again. Or think about them.”

Nor did Verity.

A half-hour later, Patience returned with a book of drawings titled Interesting Creatures of the World . “Look,” she said, opening the book, “there is a whole section on sloths, which Mr. Lackington tells me are exceedingly slow-moving.”

Patience was left wondering why her two sisters went white as dough and ran from the room.

*

Lady Lilith Crandall, daughter of the Earl of Berensby, was pensive as she regarded the pile of papers in front of her.

None of them were very satisfactory. There were invitations, but she could not help noting that the stack was not as high as it might have been and there were certain invitations missing.

There were no dinner invitations, and she perfectly well knew why.

It was thought that her father could not possibly reciprocate.

Such were their circumstances that the earl had rented the first floor of a house on Berwick Street.

It was near Mayfair, but it was not Mayfair.

It was an embarrassingly unassuming street in an equally unassuming house, and they did not even rent the whole of it. It was humiliating!

Of course, she could not entirely condemn her father.

Her grandfather had left the estate in a shambles and mortgaged up to its ears.

Really, it was a miracle they still had it in their possession.

Her father’s life’s work had been digging out of the hole and that had left him with a very limited purse to work with.

The earl had carefully weighed where to spend what he had at his disposal.

Clothes were not too much stinted on, though a lot of what she wore last season had been recut and repurposed.

They at least rented a rather fine carriage and horses as the earl could not bear to be seen going round in anything shabby.

As well, they had secured entrance into Almack’s through an old friend of her father’s who had kindly paid for the vouchers.

But the fact remained that nobody would ever come to call on her at this address.

She would not wish them to, it was all so déclassé!

Her situation presented so many complications. Were she to leave her card at another lady’s house, it must indicate her own address and at-home day. She never wished to be at home in this place and she never wished for another lady to venture here.

At her real home in the country, there was at least the illusion of wealth.

Her grandfather had not been able to destroy the house or the furniture or portraits in it that had been in place for a hundred years.

She had her own horse at home, but her mare could not be brought to Town as the stable fees would be an extra expense.

Their everyday dinners at home were nothing elaborate, but on the rare occasions that they hosted, they could put on a show.

The estate produced enough food and Cook was creative enough to cover the fact that great expense had not been gone to.

Further, as the earl always said, if the wine was not of the first quality, most of their neighbors would not know it.

Here, in Town, she felt as if she were not fully clothed. London ripped away the facade that all was well.

She’d thought she might have wed last season, as did her father.

The earl’s disappointment was evident, though he tried to hide it as he was a kind man in his own way.

Lilith had set her cap on Lord Wembly. She’d known his aunt long, as that lady’s deceased lord had been a distant cousin of her father’s and her estate was rather local to their neighborhood.

Lord Wembly’s aunt, Lady Pegatha, owned an estate that had not been entailed and her lord had seen to it that she would inherit it.

Lilith was in the same situation, but for the matter of the mortgages hanging over her head.

Lady Pegatha had offered, from time to time, to teach her of the responsibilities that would be hers someday, but all Lilith wanted was a husband to take it off her shoulders and decide what ought to be done.

The idea of Lord Wembly had seemed entirely perfect.

He was handsome and practically drowning in money.

He could bail out the estate with little trouble.

Together, they would make a dashing young couple and could take London by storm.

They could be the leading couple of the town, the couple de pouvoir.

She’d even hinted round at the idea, but he was entirely oblivious.