Page 32 of Lady Liar (A Series of Senseless Complications #5)

“W ell,” Lady Pegatha said, “this is a fine mess.”

Henry and his aunt were poring over the three prints that had gone round about him.

It was a fine mess indeed. It seemed wherever he went, somebody had seen at least one of them.

Had he not sported red hair, there might have been some confusion as to who the gentleman in the prints were, or even if they were the same gentleman.

That was not the case, and everybody had speedily leapt to the conclusion that it was him, in all three prints. But who was behind them? And why?

“I would not put it past the duke to have been the author of one of them,” Lady Pegatha said. “Or perhaps all three of them.”

“Why, though?” Henry asked. “I have not actually done anything. Why am I accused of…I am not even certain what I am accused of.”

Lady Pegatha shrugged. “The duke is a funny creature. Perhaps he thinks you have paid Lady Verity certain attentions and yet nothing firm has come of it.”

“How could anything firm come of it when I am barred from his house?”

“I did not say he was a sensible man,” Lady Pegatha said. “In any case, you are not barred from Lady Darlington’s masque. I am certain Lady Verity will attend—a lady does not compose a costume well in advance and then fail to wear it.”

“I see. Is that what you have done? Composed an elaborate costume?”

“I have not, I’ve grown too old for such things. I will wear one of my old standbys. I will go in a simple tunic in the Grecian style. You will wear a domino, I presume?”

Henry nodded. “Yes, of course I will. I do not understand these gentlemen getting themselves up as jesters and sultans and who knows what else. It is all well and good for the ladies, it is their opportunity to create something of beauty—”

“Not always,” Lady Pegatha said, with a snort. “Last year, one of Lady Verity’s sisters came as a bee. It was exceedingly odd and not at all attractive.”

Henry had heard of that, of course. Lady Serenity apparently had an overfondness for bees. It was even said that Lord Thorpe had built a crypt to house any dead bees that the lady came across.

Perhaps that was a clue to the Nicolets, and to Lady Verity herself.

It was not just the duke who was eccentric.

It was all of them. Perhaps it had been simply eccentricity that had caused Lady Verity to claim she was making scientific inquiries.

For all he knew, the whole family had laughed over it afterward.

Perhaps he’d better become more accustomed to taking in a jest? That might just be it.

In any case, he was growing tired of all this nonsense. He’d decided to wed, he’d found the lady he wished to wed, and he thought she was agreeable. Or at least, she had been agreeable. That should have been the end of it. There was no reason for these endless complications. He was fed up with it.

On the chance that she was no longer agreeable, or not at this moment agreeable, surely he could change her mind. Surely. There is, or at least was, something between them. He knew it. He was all but certain she knew it. Why were a pile of ridiculous prints circulating to get in the way of it?

“There is no dancing at Lady Darlington’s masque, none organized in any case,” Lady Pegatha said. “It will just be people milling round in costumes until the hostess names her winners and gives out her prizes. Do you have a particular strategy for the evening?”

“I do, now that I think of it. I plan to be rudely ignoring of every lady but for Lady Verity. If the duke attempts to send me away, I will only move off a few feet. He cannot make me leave the masque, after all. Then everybody will be clear that I am not on fire or fainting or spineless. I will make my apology and state my case. We will see what she says to it.”

Lady Pegatha smiled. “I like it,” she said.

“Just one little note, though. Perhaps you might want to say something more romantic than stating your case, as you term it. Just keep in mind that you will not be speaking to The Royal Society, but a lady deciding if she will wish to hook her carriage to your horses until the end of time.”

Romantic, yes, he’d better give that some thought. He’d allowed his mind to be so focused on the scientific and facts that he had no notion of what might be pleasing to a lady to hear at such a moment. “What did Lord Bessworth say to you when he proposed marriage?”

This sent his aunt into peals of laughter.

“Gracious, I have not thought of that proposal in years. He told me my eyes were stars and my skin a fine China. It was all going exceedingly well until he told me my lips were tulips. You see how funny that was—my lips were two lips? I quite adored him for it. Why not? I was mad about him, and he could have said my lips were nettles and I would have accepted him.”

Henry nodded. He would avoid any mention of tulips. What he would mention, he did not have the faintest idea.

“The important thing was, he gave it his best try,” Lady Pegatha said. “Really, a lady in love is only looking for effort, not Shakespeare.”

Henry supposed that was the real question. Was Lady Verity in love? She might have been, but he really did not know where her mind had gone since he’d last seen her.

He was determined to find out, though.

*

“It’s magnificent, Verity,” Winsome said, once more examining the costume the queen had sent to the house.

It had come earlier in the day and even Valor had been bowled over by it, despite holding the opinion that Verity should not go to the masque and they should all go home and live happily together in the Dales forever.

Verity was to go as a swan. The dress was white satin with an overlay of white feathers all positioned to mimic a swan’s wings folded.

The mask itself was white sequin with a rim of black sequins around the eyes and a dab of orange silk on the nose.

It came with white satin slippers and long white kid gloves.

The slippers were just the tiniest bit too big, but Mrs. Right had balled up small bits of paper and stuffed them into the toes to solve the problem.

It was not a dress she would have ever dreamed of wearing. Not when she’d considered herself a fraud. Not when she’d harbored a secret.

She felt a little differently now. She was not stupid; she simply had a case of word swimming. It was a condition, not a comment on her intelligence. An odd condition, to be sure, but a condition all the same.

The duke had a long talk with Verity in his library, explaining how her mother was one of the most intelligent people he’d known in his lifetime. Who really cared that words swam in front of her eyes? He had not.

Verity had asked him how and when he’d found it out. It had been early on, during their wedding trip. He’d asked her to read something or other and she’d said, “By the by, I cannot read. The words swim.” Then he’d said, “We’d best hire somebody for that then.” She’d said, “I suppose that’s right.”

That had been the entire thing! There had been no grand reveal of a terrible secret. There had been no recriminations or regrets. It had just been an offhand, ‘by the by, did I mention?’

Naturally, she did not know if Lord Wembly would be so casual about it, nor how the prints going round would have affected him. She supposed she would get a further hint tonight. Would he be there? Would he approach her? If he did, what in the world would he say?

And then, of course, what would the queen say about it all? Verity had almost expected some sort of note to come from the palace, alerting them that the queen would not attend them after all.

No note had come, though.

“Winsome, Valor?” Mrs. Right said. “Be off with you now. I want a few words with Verity before she goes downstairs.”

Winsome laid down the remarkable swan dress. “Come on, Val. We’ll take Sir Galahad downstairs so he can see Papa’s domino.”

Valor giggled. “The one with the red flames at the bottom because he’s set curtains on fire two times.” She scrambled off the bed and swept up Sir Galahad, that dog perfectly satisfied to be carried everywhere. They left and closed the door behind them.

“Now, my love,” Mrs. Right said, “I just wanted to say one little thing about the word swimming. I should have noted it. I read everything to your mother and I should have had a sharper eye out for it. I didn’t realize it could be passed down as it has been.

If I’d known it could be, I would have had a sharp eye out for it, as you are the picture of her. ”

“How could anybody know it?” Verity asked. “In any case, I did work very hard to hide it from everybody.”

“That you did. Still, when Miss Pynchon complained to me that you were not working at your studies, I should have seen it then.”

“I’m glad everybody knows now,” Verity said. “Except for Lord Wembly, he does not know.”

“If he’s got feelings for you, he won’t give a toss about it. When the duke came home with your mother, he just said I’d have to read her all her letters as she’d got some sort of eye problem. After that, I do not believe he ever gave it another thought.”

“And so you did?”

“Aye, every letter she received, and I wrote the letters going out too. Sometimes she had me read her a novel. I came to know her very well through those exercises. Now, when you go forward to your own household, hire a woman you can trust to do just the same and you should get on very well.”

Verity was cheered by the idea, but then she also knew her father to be a particularly superior sort of person and his loyalty to his own could not be questioned. She did not know Lord Wembly so well. Was he as superior a person? What would he think? What would he think about any of it?

“Come now, let’s get you into this dress. Your father says you both must be downstairs and ready well ahead of time. Nobody can expect the queen to wait on a latecomer.”

*