“Indeed they were, Beryl,” she said, “but Lady Ponsonby is really quite lovely, my lord.”
His mother and Marianne and Shields, as well as the Fromes and Velma, had been in London for a few days before he arrived with Agnes, Flavian recalled. He wondered, belatedly, whether during those days they had kept their matchmaking plans to themselves, all of them, or whether they had divulged their hopes to a select few of their acquaintances.
He would wager upon the latter.
Velma caught his eye across the room, smiled warmly, and raised one hand in greeting. But she did not approach him. She mingled with the groups around her, looking poised and lovely.
He forgot about her. He did what one did at such parties. He mingled and talked and listened and laughed. He kept an eye upon Agnes, but she did not appear to need his support. She was always occupied when he glanced her way and always smiling graciously, a becoming flush in her cheeks.
Dash it all, he thought at one point in the evening, as if he had been struck by some earth-shattering revelation, he wasgladhe had married her. He would not be married to anyone else in the world. Not for any consideration. Inevitably, he wanted her. But that thought, in the middle of a party while they were surrounded by at least a few dozen of his family members, was unworthy of him. His feelings for her went beyond the sexual. He was deucedlyfondof her. He was beginning to understand Hugo and Ben and Vincent and how they must feel about their wives.
There was to be no formal supper, but the refreshment room positively groaned with delicacies both savory and sweet, and even offered a few tables at which guests might sit while they ate, if they so chose.
Flavian was sitting at one of the tables, eating more than his fair share of lobster patties, while Miss Moffatt was giving a brief recital on the pianoforte in the music room. He was with his cousins Doris and Ginny, and young Lord Catlin, who appeared to consider himself the latter’s beau, though Ginny was giving him no noticeable encouragement. Flavian was relaxed and enjoying himself.
Yes, the warning had been unnecessary, but he was glad he had given it, glad he had told her. It was over with, and tonight he would make amends.
That was when Cousin Desmond strolled up to join in the conversation for a minute or two. He would not pull up a chair, though, and he plucked at Flavian’s sleeve and gave him a significant look, coupled with a slight jerk of the head. Flavian put the rest of his patty into his mouth, excused himself, and got to his feet.
“What is it, Des?” he asked when they were out of earshot of the others.
“I am as sure as I can be, Flave,” Desmond said, “that neither m’ father nor Uncle Quent have uttered a word to anyone. Jenkins would not have done so either. AndIcertainly have not said anything.”
“About the d-divorce?” Flavian asked.
“About Lady Havell,” Desmond said, gripping his shoulder and squeezing.
“Ah,” Flavian said. “Well. We could not have expected the g-gossips to be content with half a s-story, could we? It was bound to come out.”
“I just heard the wordwhore,” Desmond said. “And the wordswhore’s spawn. Sorry, Flave. Not in the hearing of any lady, of course, though they are starting to buzz too. I thought you ought to know.”
“Indeed.” Flavian straightened the cuffs of his coat, ran a light hand over his neck cloth, grasped the handle of his quizzing glass, and strolled into the drawing room. He gazed about him with lazy eyes and curled lip in an expression he knew held people at bay.
It was instantly apparent that something had shifted in the atmosphere of the party, even apart from the slight hush his appearance caused. His relatives, almost to a man—and woman—were smiling more brightly and chatting more animatedly than was necessary. Marianne was looking more ostentatiously gracious than a hostess needed to look at this late stage of her party. Shields looked a bit tight about the lips. Flavian’s mother was seated in one corner, with Aunt DeeDee beside her and patting one of her hands. Velma was at one side of the room, fanning her cheeks and looking sweetly sad. Agnes was in the middle of the room, a bit of a space all around her except for that occupied by one lady with tall hair plumes—Lady March, whom he had encountered at Middlebury Park last autumn, he believed.
Flavian took in the whole scene in the blink of an eye, as well as the fact that the room was surely fuller than it had been earlier, despite that bit of an empty space at the center. Had the music room and the card room completely emptied out? But, no, someone was still trilling away on the pianoforte.
He strolled unhurriedly toward the center of the room, and a path opened for him as if by magic.
“Oh, yes, Lady March,” Agnes was saying, and it seemed to Flavian that she had deliberately raised her voice so that more people than just the March lady could hear her. “You are quite right about one thing. Lady Havell is indeed my mother, though Sir Everard Havell is not my father. My father is Mr. Walter Debbins from Lancashire. Had you not heard? I thought it was common knowledge. He and my mother were divorced twenty years ago when they discovered themselves sufficiently unhappy with each other. Not many married couples have that sort of courage, do they?”
She was smiling, though not with artificial brightness. The color was higher in her cheeks, though not unbecomingly so. She looked perfectly poised as she faced scandal and possible ostracism even before the Season began in earnest.
“Indeed,” Lady March said faintly. “And I wonder if Viscountess Darleigh of Middlebury Park, my niece, is aware of exactly who you are,LadyPonsonby. I understand she befriended you when you were plain Mrs. Keeping.”
“And I befriended her,” Agnes said, her smile softening, “when she was new to her title and position and had been abandoned, even if only temporarily, by her own family. My father made a happy remarriage to my stepmother nine years ago, as my mother did to Sir Everard eighteen or nineteen years ago. They have lived a retired life together in Kensington ever since. Sometimes all reallyiswell that ends well, ma’am, would you not agree?”
She smiled warmly at Flavian as he approached, his quizzing glass to his eye and trained upon Lady March’s plumes. They were of an extraordinary height. She must have them specially made, though Lord knew how she managed to get into a carriage with them. Had March had a hole sawn in the roof? He lowered his glass, smiled languidly, took his wife’s hand in his, and raised it to his lips.
“I called upon them there this afternoon,” he said on a sigh. “My mother-in-law and all that. Have you m-met them, ma’am?”
Lady March appeared to crumple slightly under the full onslaught of his most sleepy gaze, though her plumes, made of sterner stuff, still stood stiffly at attention. He had left her with only one thing to say, and she said it.
“I have not had that pleasure, Lord Ponsonby,” she said, her voice almost vibrating with outrage.
“Ah,” he said, “a pity. Charming couple.”
But she had been bested. So had everyone else who had shared her desire to be spiteful, to embarrass the new Lady Ponsonby, to cut her down to size, perhaps to ensure that she was given the cut direct by thetonas her mother had, merely because she was the daughter of that mother.
