She was not going to stay and find out. She no longer needed to skulk about in search of secrets. The very first night, she had learned he possessed more money and far more brains than he’d let on to his silent investor.
Things were different now. She was no longer some pseudonymous landlord. He’d placed his journal of accounts in her hands. Trusted her more than she deserved.
With a heavy heart, she slipped out from behind the folding curtain, out of the empty office, out the darkened corridor. Whatever trouble was afoot up front meant that no one was minding the back. It was a perfect moment for escape.
Return to the world where she supposedly belonged.
Chapter 7
Bryony sat in the center of her mother’s drawing room, stabbing a needle into white linen. She would much rather be reading a book, but the stories of adventurous men who are allowed to do whatever they wish had lost some of its luster. She wasnotmannish, no matter what her mother claimed.
She should not try so hard to fight the current.
Her mother floated into the room just as the butler arrived to announce the arrival of a friend.
“Lady Grenville!” squealed Mrs. Eastburn to Bryony’s mother, as if finding the baroness at home in her own house at the hour of an obviously prearranged appointment had managed to both shock and delight her.
Bryony kept stabbing her needle through the cloth as the two ladies bussed cheeks and complemented each other on the handsome cut of their gowns and the delicate embroidery on their bonnets.
Bryony had little to no experience with delicate embroidery. Not wearing it, and definitely not creating it. She’d had to remove almost as many stitches from her sampler as she put in, resulting in a swatch of linen full of more holes than beauty.
’Twas probably fitting.
In order to give herself a project she would have any interest in completing, she’d asked her artistic sister-in-law to design a simplistic—yet demonic—pattern comprising the words “Cloven Hoof” and a few symbolic elements to remind Bryony of its irascible owner.
It was not a highbrow endeavor, nor a work of art that would ever be put on display, but it was exponentially more amusing than embroidering still-lifes of crooked fruit.
“That must be your daughter,” Mrs. Eastburn announced as if catching sight of Bryony for the first time. But she made no attempt to speak to her or greet her directly.
“That is indeed my daughter,” Mother lamented without so much as looking over her shoulder.
Mrs. Eastburn nodded knowingly. “The youngest?”
“The spinster,” came Mother’s long-suffering reply.
Bryony was suddenly grateful they were not addressing her directly.
“Come, let us sit over here where we will not disturb her.” Mother led her guest to a clump of wingback chairs on the other side of the drawing room, presumably out of earshot.
The tall backs of their chairs successfully blocked their faces from view.
Unfortunately, Mother’s idea of a whisper was still discernable in the otherwise silent house.
“What was I saying?” she murmured once her friend had taken a seat.
“It’s what you didn’t say,” Mrs. Eastburn breathed in awe. “That one is the violin prodigy. Why do you have her here sewing samplers instead of traveling the world as a virtuoso?”
Bryony perked up. Perhaps overhearing hushed whispers wasn’t a bad thing.
“All my daughters love sewing samplers,” Mother said with the confidence of a woman who relied more on information plucked from the air and her own imagination than the empirical world around her. “And ladies cannot be virtuosos.”
“She is a fourth child and on the shelf,” Mrs. Eastburn reminded her. “I imagine she might enjoy the opportunity to do something with her talent.”
“She has plenty of opportunity,” Mother said. “The exclusivity of our family musicales is more than honor enough for Bryony. She doesn’t need to work for money. She needs a husband. If you hadn’t heard, her eldest sister managed to bring an earl up to scratch. I hope Bryony will do even better.”
“A duke?” Mrs. Eastburn whispered as if this future husband was already a foregone conclusion. “Have you a certain one in mind?”
Mother was all too happy to expound upon one of her favorite subjects. “Of the two left in the Marriage Mart, I fear Lambley is almost beyond the pale. His infamous masquerades and endless debauchery would have to cease when he took a wife, else he’d risk exposing her good name to scandal.”
