A duke could put any name on any list. Not always, but often enough.
“Shall I send our acceptance?” her mother asked.
“Yes,” Gwen said. “By all means.”
She had wanted money and to disappear. Instead, she had received an invitation that would put her under every eye that mattered. It was the opposite of hiding. It was also perhaps the only way to discover whether the Duke meant to pay his debt or play a longer game.
She smoothed her skirts and sat very straight while the fire flickered. The clock chimed again. Sleep dragged at her bones. She smiled at nothing at all to keep her face from revealing that she wished to curl up like a child.
Wednesday is tomorrow. Perhaps I can sleep until then.
If the Duchess of Bellweather desired to see her, then she would see a lady composed, common as sunlight, impossible to scandalize. At least until tomorrow.
“Go upstairs, my love. Howard won’t be back until late tonight.”
“Are you sure?” Gwen asked, half awake, before standing and moving toward the door without another word.
Sleep claimed her before she could summon another thought.
By morning, sunlight spilled across her pillow like a summons. Martha’s cheerful fussing and the rustle of silk soon followed.
Cordelia had stopped by and chittered while she was getting ready. She explained that she had somehow managed to let Gwendoline go to the event without a chaperone, as “It would not be appropriate, darling. You were not allowed a chaperone on the invitation.”
“Is that not intended, though? Won’thefind it rather improper?”
“The Duchess’s wishes shall not be challenged, my dear. Go ahead; we’ll be here when you return.”
Before Gwen quite knew how, she was dressed, gloved, and bound for the Duchess of Bellweather’s garden.
The foliage and flora were a theater in green. The expansive lawns spread in precise panels, hedges rose like walls of clipped emerald, and beyond them, the river made a glassy ribbon under a benevolent sky.
The Duchess herself was receiving guests from a pavilion striped in cream and blue, her turban fixed with a ridiculous aigrette that only a woman very certain of her status could carry without drowning in laughter.
“Lady Gwendoline,” she greeted with bright politeness, as if they had been acquainted for years. “How good of you to come.”
“It is an honor, Your Grace,” Gwen replied with a curtsy that could pass inspection.
The Duchess let her go with a touch of fingers and turned to castigate a viscount who had arrived with the wrong shoes for grass.
Gwen escaped along a path where roses bred by Italian monks attempted to reach heaven without scandal.
“Over here,” hissed a veryun-Italianvoice.
Arabella flew at her like a silk comet and seized both her hands. Eleanor followed with greater dignity and a quizzing eyebrow.
“You received it,” Arabella said. “We prayed over the post and lit two candles. Eleanor refused a third, since it would be untidy.”
“One does not light candles for the post,” Eleanor argued. “One simply writes better letters. You look pale, Gwen. Are you indisposed?”
“Only tired,” Gwen answered. “There have been a great deal of mornings in our house and very few nights.”
“You must tell us everything,” Arabella demanded. “Begin with last evening. You disappeared like a heroine in a novel. Eleanor and I were forced to speak to Mrs. Danforth. She believes that lemon creams are a spiritual trial.”
Gwen laughed, which rescued her from saying the whole truth. She told the shape of it. A garden. A shadowed walk. A gentleman who should have kept his mask on. No names. Nobargain. Her voice remained light, as if she were recounting a silly mishap with a flounce and a muddy patch.
Eleanor’s eyes sharpened. “You saw something that could have been heard from every mouth in Mayfair this morning. It was not.”
“Because I am discreet,” Gwen quipped.
