Page 22 of Lady Liar (A Series of Senseless Complications #5)

H enry noticed Lady Verity’s younger sisters’ expressions upon being apprised that they’d not come out victorious at the scavenger hunt. He could not say they were particularly full of grace.

“What?” Lady Valor asked in an accusatory tone, as if it were he, himself, who had provided this affront.

“That’s what I say,” Lady Winsome said. “What?”

“I am afraid it is the case,” Lord Wembly said.

“Well, it is only a bit of amusement, is it not?” Lady Lilith said. “I suppose it hardly matters who won.”

Lady Valor and Lady Winsome glared at her. Henry did not suppose Lady Lilith had quite the same competitive spirit as the Nicolets. She did not seem to understand them at all.

“We must face it with good grace,” Lady Verity said, particularly staring at Lady Valor. “No matter how disappointed one might feel. Valor, Sir Galahad would be let down if he were to know you were defeated by it. He will expect more from you, I am sure.”

This seemed to give Lady Valor pause. “He does depend on me to be strong. Whenever we hear a noise in the night, he hides his face in my pillow, and I have to pretend I’m not frightened so he won’t worry about us getting murdered.”

“Quite right,” Lady Verity said. “We will make our way back and congratulate the winners for their cleverness.”

They did make their way back, despite the various groans from Lady Valor and Lady Winsome.

Sir Jonathan stood on a table to address the returning crowds.

“Ladies, gentlemen, I am so grateful that you have seen fit to support my little charity by running hither and thither, deciphering my clues. The Sewing Circle will do much good work with your generosity. This will afford the admission of twenty-seven new girls into the program. I am happy for that and I am happy to announce the winners of this little amusement—Lord and Lady Blendwhistle.”

Everyone raised an applause for the victorious couple, though Henry could not miss that Lady Valor’s clap was exceedingly slow and halfhearted. Even a bit contemptuous, if he was not mistaken.

“May I present Lady Blendwhistle with a looking glass from Rundell & Bridge, which I hope is deemed charming,” Sir Jonathan said. He held up a very small looking glass in a round case bejeweled in topaz and small pearls—the sort of thing that might be carried in a lady’s reticule.

“Ugh,” Lady Winsome said, “it’s lovely.”

“It really is so beautiful,” Lady Valor said. “I’m devastated that we did not win it.”

Lady Verity laughed. “It is just as well. You and Winny would have fought over it like cats.”

“That’s true,” Lady Valor admitted. “I would have hidden it and sworn I didn’t know where it was and then felt bad for lying.”

“Not so bad that you would have admitted to lying about it, though,” Lady Winsome said.

Lady Valor snorted over the accusation. “No, not as bad as that.”

The duke approached and said jocularly, “Could not get my girls over the finish line, eh, Wembly?”

“We did our best, Your Grace,” Lord Wembly said. “We were moments behind the victors.”

“But we lost,” Valor said, kicking at the grass.

“Yes, yes, it’s only a game after all. Lady Lilith, what brings you into our party?”

Lady Lilith appeared flustered to be asked. “Oh, Your Grace, as to that, my father decided to stay in our carriage, declining the exercise.”

“Hah! So he sent you out with your maid, eh? A bit of trying work for a maid, running back and forth.”

Lady Lilith did not seem to have an answer for that, though her maid curtsied and smiled. She might have even winked, if Henry had not imagined it.

“Well now, I was not particularly expecting to return home victorious,” the duke said.

“Papa!” Lady Winsome said. “You expected us to lose?”

“No, I just did not expect you to win, odds of it, you know. Now, as I did not expect a win, I did arrange for a tea with Cook’s special apple cakes to soothe your battered pride. Wembly? You’ll come along.”

“Apple cakes?” Lady Lilith said. “Goodness, that sounds lovely.”

Henry pressed his lips together. If he’d had any doubts about whether Lady Lilith was engineering things, it was gone. There could hardly be a more obvious gambit to be invited along. He really found her boldness unpleasant. There was no point to it!

“And leave your father in the carriage? No, I will not hear of it,” the duke said. “I would not like it for myself if my girls left me in the park.”

“I will never leave you, Papa,” Lady Valor said.

“Yes, so you keep threatening,” the duke said drily. “What’s say we walk Lady Lilith back to her carriage, say hello to the earl, and then we’ll be off.”

Lady Lilith looked entirely panicked at this proposal, though her maid looked amused. “Not at all necessary, Your Grace,” she sputtered. “Well! I should not like to keep my father waiting. Clara? Let us depart.” She curtsied and took her maid by the arm.

Lady Lilith practically ran from the enclosure, dragging her maid along with her.

The duke laughed heartily. “Guess whose earl is not in her carriage? Knew it all along.”

Now Henry knew it too. Lady Lilith had come with just her maid to escort her, almost certainly had not bought a ticket to support Sir Jonathan’s charity, and then pushed into the duke’s party. He supposed one might admire her determination, but he did not. It was simply off-putting.

However, Lady Lilith and her machinations were to be put aside. He was invited to the duke’s house for apple cake.

*

Lilith felt as if she had escaped certain embarrassment.

Not just felt, she knew she had. What if the duke had pressed forward and insisted on walking her to her carriage, only to find it empty of her father?

She would be forced to feign surprise and wonder if he’d walked off somewhere while the coachman rolled his eyes. She would never have been believed.

Everyone would know she’d come alone. Lord Wembly would know it, and likely put together that she’d purposely inserted herself into his party.

He’d probably guess that she never even had a ticket.

He might tell others of his suspicions. Lilith had noted Sir Jonathan looking surprised to see her and hoped he’d forget all about it in the excitement of the day.

But if it were mentioned that she’d come alone… She’d be seen as desperate.

She was desperate, but she could not bear to be seen so.

Lilith and Clara hurriedly got into the carriage, and she shut the curtains so a nosy duke could not peer inside.

Clara straightened her skirt and said, “Well, that was a palaver. So this is what the high and mighty get up to while everybody else is at their work. Hard to believe.”

Lilith sighed. Clara was prone to making such statements and hinting that she, herself, was always working.

It was not in the least bit true—Clara did a lot of sitting around and ordering her father’s maid of all work to bring her things.

In any case, what did she expect from Lilith?

That she should work as a governess or companion?

She repressed a small gulp, as there was the remotest possibility it would come to that. She had to marry! She thought she might manage it too, if it were not for Lady Verity in the way.

“Clara,” she said, “I am an earl’s daughter. My only employment can ever be as a wife and the mistress of a large house. It’s what I’ve been brought up for.”

“Aye, I can see it from your hands,” Clara said, examining her own rather red and chapped hands. “Nice future, if one is lucky. As for the rest of us, well, I only say.”

“Your own hands would not look half so bad if you applied Milk of Roses every night,” Lilith said. “It is not as if you wash dishes and need to have hands looking like that. You just must care for them.”

Clara ignored this tip just as she had a dozen others. “I don’t see why you’re chasing round that Lord Wembly, though. Not with his eyes turned elsewhere.”

“Is it that obvious?” Lilith asked. “That he’s turned to Lady Verity?”

“As obvious as the nose on my face,” Clara said.

“I don’t know what he sees in her,” Lilith said.

Clara snorted. “I reckon he sees her face. She’s got a pretty one.”

This did put Lilith’s back up. “She might well be handsome, but I find her coloring rather…well, the point is that she is absurd. And very much a liar. She invents things. He ought to note it and refuse to be connected with her. Looks will fade but truthfulness is forever.”

“Is it now?” Clara said, laughing. “Well, you know how men are, bowled over by a pretty face. They think they are so superior in their faculties, but a pretty face will take their brains and send them through a laundry mangle and straight into mush. I know it better than anybody. Mr. Leister, he’s training to be a solicitor, looked right by me and made off with Letty Grange.

She’s a bad-tempered girl, but she’s got a good face. ”

“And you could do nothing about it?” Lilith asked.

“I could have,” Clara said. “I just chose not to. After all, if Mr. Leister ain’t falling at my feet, I don’t want him. Whoever I marry will treat me better than a duchess, he’ll be that bowled over by me.”

Lilith ignored the idea that Clara was to be treated as a duchess, as she was certain the girl did not have the first idea of what it would entail.

“You could have done something, though? What could you have done?” Lilith was really grasping at straws now, to solicit Clara’s advice. But she had no ideas of her own.

“Well, I did have a bright idea at the time. You know those caricatures you see for sale at print shops and sometimes printed in the newspapers? The ones that poke at the prince and parliament and the like? I know a fella who draws such things and works at a press. I was gonna ask him to sketch Letty Grange as a fishwife shouting at somebody looking very like Mr. Leister and pepper the neighborhood with them. You see, to give a clue to Mr. Leister as to what he was getting himself into. I didn’t do it, though. ”