She nodded. “Many,” she said, her voice heavy with displeased meaning. “Ah, here come some of my friends, and Liddy is with them so you can meet the miscreant who invaded your room,” she finished, her voice changing to indulgent pleasure.
“The older woman majestically leading the way is Mrs. Vance. Hilda Vance. Mrs. Vance’s family claims she has dementia. She doesn’t, but she likes it here, so doesn’t fight them about it. Yet, now they want to take charge of all her money and control everything. She is preparing for that fight by revealing secrets about them. In other words, she is planning to resort to blackmail to get them to leave her alone.”
Cecilia suppressed a laugh and decided she was going to like Mrs. Vance.
“The gentleman escorting her is Mr. Quetal. Mr. Quetal had a nervous breakdown six months ago. He was the estate agent for an impecunious new heir to a peerage. The heir harangued and pressured him to make the young man’s new estate solvent, but the heir kept spending money the estate didn’t have. Mr. Quetal tried desperately to do a good job. He cracked under the pressure—especially when threatened with the loss of his job without a referral.”
Cecilia studied the man. About thirty, she thought, a little too thin, but not worrisomely so. His brown hair thinned at the top of his head. What was nice to see was how he didn’t stoop. He walked with his shoulders back, and the manner of his attire was conservative but neat.
On the man’s other arm, he escorted Miss Liddy. The young girl had obviously changed clothes and had her hair attended to. She aped Mrs. Vance in her posture, looking over at her fromtime to time. What Cecilia hadn’t seen before was the port wine stain birthmark that wrapped halfway around her left eye and came down in an arc across her cheek to just below her ear.
“Can you believe little Liddy is here because her mother can’t stand to look at her?” Julia whispered.
Cecilia’s head turned sharply to look at Julia in shock then back to the threesome approaching the table. Behind them were two others, a frazzled strawberry blonde in a plain brown gown and a beautiful young man—there could be no other words to describe him—in an elegantly tailored suit of a rich blue over a waistcoat of figured pale-blue silk.
Julia introduced Cecilia to Mrs. Vance, Mr. Quetal, and Liddy. As they were taking seats, she introduced her to Miss Dorn and Mr. Hobart.
Cecilia nodded to them, then hurried to grab her handkerchief out of the long sleeve of her dress. She could feel the pressure of another cough coming. And she’d had so few this day. She turned her head and coughed into her handkerchief, then turned back to the others at the table.
“My apologies!” she said, her voice hoarse, another cough threatening. “I promise you my illness is past.”
“Yet the cough won’t say goodbye, so naughty,” said Mrs. Vance. “I have experienced the same.”
“Thank you for understanding,” Cecilia said. “I just can’t seem to recover completely. That’s why I’m here.”
“It’s always nice to meet new people; however, I hope for your sake it is a short acquaintance,” Mrs. Vance said, reaching across to pat her hand.
“You’re too kind,” Cecilia said meekly.
“And what she is not telling you is she is enceinte as well,” Julia said.
Next to Mrs. Vance, Miss Dorn let out a yowl of anguish and began to cry. She stumbled out of her chair, knocking it overas she turned to run from the room. All eyes followed her exit except for Mrs. Vance’s. She looked up and rolled her pale-gray eyes, then looked over at Julia.
“Julia, my dear, that was ill-done.”
Julia had the grace to look contrite. “It was not done out of malice, and it is true. Miss Dorn needs to learn not to react so strongly,” she said.
“Excuse me, what happened? Why did Miss Dorn start to cry and run from the room?” Cecilia asked. She noted the men looked studiously down.
“She lost her baby, now she cries when she hears of another woman having a baby,” little Liddy said shrugging, her young, singsong voice carrying across the room. She took a bite of buttered bread as all eyes in the room turned from following Miss Dorn out of the room to Liddy’s pronouncement.
“Hush, child,” Mrs. Vance gently reprimanded.
“Why?” Liddy asked, her voice softer. Her head tilted to the side. “It’s true. And she’s always wanting a baby or saying she’s going to have a baby when she’s not.”
“We know, dear, she’s just having a difficult time right now,” Mrs. Vance said.
Liddy shrugged. “She even asked Mr. Montgomery if he would give her a baby. He said no and told her he’d report her to Dr. Worcham if she kept bothering him.”
“Quite right of Mr. Montgomery,” said Julia with a definitive nod. “He had standards too high to deal with the likes of her,” she finished.
Liddy looked at Julia, a sly expression on her face. “Then she said she bet Archie would.”
“What!” Julia exclaimed. Both Mr. Quetal and Mr. Hobart looked aside to hide a laugh. Mrs. Vance closed her eyes and shook her head.
“When did this occur?” Cecilia asked softly.
“A couple of days before he died…I miss him,” Liddy said, slumping in her chair.
