Page 16 of Lady Liar (A Series of Senseless Complications #5)

L ilith had experienced a very unsatisfactory evening at Lady Herring’s rout. She had been certain that Lord Wembly would be there. After all, he’d been there last year, as Lady Pegatha was a longtime friend of Lady Herring.

Neither of them had been there. Of course, there were plenty of single gentlemen roaming about, but Lilith had begun to notice that she did not attract their notice. She was not so modest or bashful as to blame it on her looks. Her looks were quite good, and she knew it.

No, it was the finances. She did not come with a large dowry.

In truth, it was rather a pittance, more for form than for any good it would do anybody.

She understood that many of these eligible gentlemen had pressing needs in that department, just as her father’s son would have, had there been a son.

As it was, the estate was not entailed. Her cousin would inherit the title, and she would inherit… a large mortgage.

Nobody would ask for her hand that could not afford to. That was one of the reasons it was so pressing to find some way to become alluring to Lord Wembly. He did not need anybody’s money, and she was certain he did not give a second’s thought about it.

She’d encountered Lord Westerby, a rather cranky old bachelor who was forever lecturing people on whatever occurred to him.

What generally occurred to him was some esoteric and tedious subject.

Lilith might have pretended she did not see him and turned in the opposite direction, but Lord Westerby had one thing going for him—he was a member of The Royal Society.

He was an associate of Lord Wembly’s and might even know why he had not come.

“Lord Westerby,” she said, “how do you do these days? I do not believe I have seen you since last season.”

Lord Westerby harumphed and said, “Here I am, very predictably a year older. Time will not be slowed or stopped, nature of the thing.”

Lilith nodded as if she’d been thinking that very same thought. She hurried on, lest she become caught in a long lecture about time. “I am surprised to note the absence of Lord Wembly this evening. I believe he has the habit of attending every year.”

This, for some reason, seemed to strike Lord Westerby harder than it ought. He shook his head and said, “Bad business, that.”

Bad business? Had something happened? Had Lord Wembly been injured or taken ill?

“Saw him on the street this morning, could hardly believe my ears,” Lord Westerby said, shaking his head in a disapproving fashion.

“What has happened?” she asked.

“Now, do not play these games with me, Lady Lilith!” he said. “I know what I am looking at when I look at it. Not much gets past me, I’ve seen too much of this world!”

“What were you looking at, though?” Lilith asked, entirely aggravated with the lord’s opaque manner of speaking. She hardly cared how much of the world he’d seen if he could not explain a simple fact. What in the world had happened?

“Consider this: a fellow dines at a lady’s house and then has the temerity, the temerity I say, to claim he must go riding on Monday?

Riding? At the very time of Mr. Bell’s lecture on his final volume of the principles of surgery?

I see what’s going on—another man defeated by urges and sentimentality and thereby lost to science. ”

Lilith was thinking as quick as she could to unravel Lord Westerby’s opaque speech. As far as she could gather, Lord Wembly had dined somewhere and then engaged himself for a ride in the park. With who, though?

“I am well aware that the world needs to be populated,” Lord Westerby said, “but I also know there are plenty of people to do it! A man of science must not allow his time to be taken up with domestic concerns.”

“Might I ask the name of the lady?” Lilith asked, praying he would remember it.

“Another one of those Nicolets,” Lord Westerby said.

“That really does prove my point too—there are plenty of folks who can populate the world. It is what they should be doing, as they’re not good for much else.

That duke has never had a rational thought in his life, quite right that he’s spent his time populating the world.

Though why he went with seven daughters and no sons entirely escapes me. ”

From that, Lilith gathered he referred to the Duke of Pelham and his endless string of daughters, the latest being Lady Verity. Lord Wembly had gone to dine there? He’d gone to Grosvenor Square to dine?

The idea irked her from head to toe. It must be very nice to have a house on Grosvenor Square, and not even rented as far as she knew it.

She would not have thought Lord Wembly would be bowled over by an address, but then apparently he’d arranged to go riding with Lady Verity.

Perhaps he was bowled over by Lady Verity herself, which was an even worse thought.

“These women are so crafty!” Lord Westerby went on.

“Wembly wished to know from me if I were aware of any research being done into the eyesight of fish, on land no less, because she is looking into it. Hah! If she’d done anything more than peering into a goldfish bowl, I would be surprised to know it.

Wembly’s been taken in by sly feminine wiles.

I fear we are to lose another man of science to the pedestrian confines of matrimony.

I really do not know how humankind expects to advance with all these distractions on hand. ”

So that was Lady Verity’s gambit. She was posing as if she was as scientific-minded as Lord Wembly.

Or maybe she actually was, which would be exceedingly odd.

No, she could not be. She invented it to gain his admiration.

The eyesight of fish indeed. Why would a fish need eyesight out of the water?

Just to see it was on the verge of landing in a frying pan?

It was absurd. Certainly, Lord Wembly could not put any stock in the idea.

“Did Lord Wembly say what time he would go riding?” Lilith asked.

“Say what time?” Lord Westerby said, as if it were a deranged sort of question. “He did not need to say what time! It’s the same time as Bell’s lecture, which is four o’clock!”

Lord Wembly would ride in the park on Monday at four o’clock.

She must be there. She would dearly like to ride herself, but she did not have her mare in Town.

Even if she had, her riding habit was a bit on the threadbare and faded side.

That was perfectly fine in the country, where one could pose as an unfussy country sort of person, but it would never have done in London.

She would go in her father’s carriage, and she would take Clara as her companion.

Somehow, she would find Lord Wembly there and attempt to extricate him from Lady Verity’s clutches.

How she would extricate him, she did not yet know.

Of course, maybe there was something to be done with this absurd idea of pretending to study the eyesight of fish on land?

There might very well be. One thing she was certain of when it came to the baron—he was a no-nonsense sort of person relying exclusively on facts.

Were he to conclude that Lady Verity spouted off nonsense, he could neither like nor approve of it.

Perhaps it would be Lady Verity herself who would extricate Lord Wembly from her clutches.

*

For the first time in her life, Verity had admitted to someone that she could not read. She’d said it aloud. To Winsome. It had felt very odd to say it aloud, as it had been all her life such a close-held secret.

At first, Winsome had not believed her, or at least thought she exaggerated. Her sister had even grabbed a book from the shelf and opened it to a page and put it under her nose. She’d said, “Surely, you can read a page.”

She’d tried. She’d recognized a word here and there. Then she gave up.

She told Winsome the whole of it. How many times she’d tried, books by candlelight, the terrible lessons with Miss Pynchon, and the inventing of facts to cover that she knew so little.

Verity had thought Winsome might feel rather victorious over all the times she’d challenged her sister and accused her of inventing something. After all, it must be gratifying to discover that one had been right all along.

She’d been surprised when Winsome had wept over it. She said she never would have teased if she’d known. Then they’d both wept. Then Mrs. Right came in, wanting to know what they were weeping about.

They did not tell her, though.

After that, they’d had a lengthy conversation about it. Most particularly, Verity wished to know if there was some trick to it. Some strategy she didn’t know anything about that might solve the problem.

Winsome did not have any tricks to tell her. Nor did she understand where Verity’s problem was. If her sister knew her alphabet and she knew words, why could she not read them all together?

Verity did not know. She’d hoped for some sort of answer, some clue, but it was not to be had.

It was a relief to tell someone, though, even if neither of them could think what to do about it.

Or what to do about Lord Wembly. Verity had almost hoped that Winsome would tell her that the lord would not care a jot about it. She had not, though.

Of course she had not. He was an intellectual who said the first thing he’d admired about Lady Verity Nicolet was her mind.

Now it was Sunday. As was their usual habit while they were in Town, they’d all spent an hour in the morning reading their bibles.

Verity could see well enough that was another thing that had struck Winsome.

They sat in the drawing room with their father and Valor.

Verity, as she always did, pretended to read.

Now Winsome knew it was all a facade. Now Winsome knew that her sister could not even read the word of God!

Even Valor could do it, but she could not.