“I’m not sure I do,” said Claire, with remarkable patience. “In any event, I was not the one who sent the invitations. I am only involved in the event on merit of providing my ballroom. The hostess herself is Lady Aster.”
“Oh, is that the case? I am not familiar with Lady Aster. Relation to the Duke of Canterbury, I imagine?” continued Mrs. Tolliver, not even looking up as Vix and Ambrose stepped out of the front door and into the sun, side by side. “I did hear one of their many sons was recently knighted here in the city. I am well-informedin matters of High Society, you understand. Perhaps the hostess is his wife?”
She looked much the same as Vix remembered from their last barbed conversation. Stiff brown hair dappled with strands of early gray; tight, smooth skin for a woman in her fourth decade; and a smile so artificial, Vix was surprised it did not leak cotton stuffing.
“Yes,” said Ambrose, drawing the women’s attention up and around to them. He was standing upright otherwise, his hair glinting silver white in the hot sun, his expression impermeable. “She is my wife.”
“Oh, Lord Aster!” fluttered Jacqueline Tolliver, taking two gliding steps forward before stopping dead in her tracks, her horrified eyes falling on Vix at his side.
“Sir Ambrose,” he corrected, his whole body flinching at the incorrect address, which was apparently worse than even the already-loathed correct one.
Mrs. Tolliver heard him but was still fixated on Vix, her eyes blazing with outrage. “Victoria?! Get away from Sir Ambrose at once!”
Vix blinked, a little astonished at being given an immediate command, as though she were still in this woman’s employ. “I beg your pardon?”
“My honorable gentleman, I must warn you about this girl,” Mrs. Tolliver was already saying, gathering her skirts and marching forward like she was going to separate them by hand. “I suppose you and your lady wife are in need of a governess, but this is not the one to hire! I can attest to it from experience!”
Vix began to laugh. She did not plan to do it. She certainly would not have, if given the time and option to choose how to react, but the entire scene was so absurd that she found it happening before she could even consider the thing.
It brought Mrs. Tolliver’s head up in immediate outrage, stopping her again mid-stride. “As I said!” she said on an outraged exhale, gesturing at Vix. “Utterly insolent. Unsuitable in every way.”
Claire cleared her throat. “Mrs. Tolliver,” she said gently.
It brought the lady around, wild-eyed, to behold the countess. “She is notyourgoverness, I hope, Lady Bentley? If so, the same warning is one I would issue to you, just as I issued it to the very school we seek to enrich here today!”
“Mrs. Tolliver,” Claire repeated, still gentle, a placid smile on her face. “You are addressing Lady Aster.”
“I … what do you mean?” Mrs. Tolliver replied, her tone immediately losing some of its fire. “Who?”
“I,” said Vix, drawing her head back around as she turned and took Ambrose’s arm, leaning against him, “am Lady Aster. Very recently married, in fact.”
“Victoria!” Mrs. Tolliver snapped, as though she were going to immediately forbid such a thing from being true.
“Vix,” she corrected with a slight lift of her chin. “My name is Vix. But you will address me as Lady Aster.”
Mrs. Tolliver’s jaw dropped open, her contained bluster flowering in blooms of pink and red along her chest and neck. She dragged her eyes from Vix to her husband, her head shaking in denial. “Sir Ambrose, I must caution you—”
“Good lady,” Ambrose added, a darkness to his tone. “You will have a care how you speak to your betters. You have come to this place on a day of charity and insulted my wife. If you have any reason to linger here, you had best state it immediately. Otherwise, I think it obvious that the time to depart has arrived.”
“Actually, this saves me a missive,” Vix said, raising her brows. “Jacqueline, after my experience in your home, I cannot in good conscience allow another girl to be sent into it. You will find you are hereby barred from employing governesses that have been educated as I was. I’m afraid you will have to govern your own children or elsewise find someone without the pedigree you so prefer.”
“You cannot do that,” Mrs. Tolliver breathed. “How dare you address me by my Christian name? I do not know what manner of farce this is, but you are well beyond your reach, Victoria Beck.”
“I think you will find that I can and have done that,” Vix replied, plucking a bit of imaginary grime off her dress and flicking it away. “Our girls have no trouble finding good placements, as you well know. Your home is no loss to us.”
“Deborah Baxter is a personal friend,” Mrs. Tolliver snapped. “She would never levy such insult on my good name.”
“Mrs. Baxter is a pragmatist running an institution that needs funding to survive,” Vix corrected, almost too impatient to maintain her tone of utter boredom. “I only hope that this lesson shall inspire you to become a better mistress to those in your home, before you lose everyone else who does the work of living on your behalf. I cannot imagine what would happen if you were forced to care for yourself.”
Whatever Mrs. Tolliver might have said next was interrupted by the arrival of the others on the doorstep, apparently drawn by either curiosity or concern to observe the outcome on the lawn. Her eyes immediately fell upon Teddy’s imposing frame, an uncertainty on her face at such a man in fine clothes in the home of an earl.
“Ah,” said Vix, brightening as she turned and walked toward him, her hand reaching for his arm. “My brother, Thaddeus Beck. I believe you sent him a personal letter in the spring, didn’t you, Jacqueline?”
“She did,” Teddy answered, his voice deep and sharp, making the woman startle. “Has she come to discuss the contents of that letter? I would not be opposed to an explanation.”
“I am— I am afraid I … must be elsewhere,” she stammered, stumbling backward and almost directly into the countess in the process. She tossed Vix one more baffled, hateful glare, then spun on the flat heel of her boot and retreated. She did not quite run, but the speed of her walk was certainly higher than a natural gait.
“Pity,” Ambrose said, glancing at Vix. “I thought she’d have a full strop. I was looking forward to it.”
