Perhaps Papa’s reproof subdued Augusta temporarily. Or perhaps she couldn’t at the moment devise another way to abuse her sister. Whatever the reason, she reverted to the subject of Almack’s.
Mama and Papa, who did not find this subject nearly as stimulating as Augusta did, moved away, Mama to her needlework and Papa to the chair beside her and a book.
Would she one day find a man with whom she’d sit in that way? Zoe wondered. Would she and this unknown husband ever be quietly content in each other’s company? While such a prospect might not be fashionable, Zoe decided it might not be as boring as some might think.
“Marchmont will be there,” Augusta said, drawing Zoe from a domestic reverie in which a man who too closely resembled the duke sat by the fire with her.
“Where?” Zoe said.
“Almack’s, of course,” said Augusta. “Were you not listening? The patronesses will be devastated if he doesn’t appear. He’s as important to them as Brummell used to be.”
“I think they’ll be devastated tonight,” Zoe said. “He said he had an engagement at eight o’clock.”
“That leaves plenty of time for Almack’s,” said Augusta. “The doors don’t close until eleven. His engagement is no doubt with Lady Tarling,” she added, lowering her voice so that their parents couldn’t hear—not that they offered any signs of listening to what was said on the other side of the room.
“Lady Tarling?” Zoe quickly ran through the names she’d memorized from the newspapers and scandal sheets. This one was unfamiliar.
“His mistress,” Augusta whispered.
Zoe felt a sharp stab within, which she told herself was foolish. He was a handsome, rich, and powerful man. All the virgins would want him for a husband. All the not-virgins would want him for a lover. “He must have many concubines,” she said.
“I am sure I know nothing of such things,” Augusta said. “However, he and her ladyship are exceedingly discreet, which is all propriety requires. She is a widow, after all, and widows and married women are allowed more freedom, as I am sure I have explained to you.”
“All widows have freedom but me,” said Zoe.
“Nobody knows what you are,” Augusta said. “How can you be a widow when by rights you could not have been properly married because the man already had a wife?”
Zoe doubted she’d been properly married in any sense, even by the standards of the world she’d escaped. She was a widow who couldn’t really be a widow because she hadn’t really been a wife because she remained a virgin. There was a social conundrum if ever she’d seen one.
“I can promise you that Lady Tarling will not accompany Marchmont to Almack’s,” Augusta went on. “Lady Jersey hates her and refuses to put her on the list. Lady Tarling pretends it doesn’t signify. She makes a point of going to bed before midnight on Wednesday, in order to rise at dawn to ride in Hyde Park. She’s a fearsome horsewoman. Everyone says that’s what attracted Marchmont to her in the first place.”
Zoe doubted it was the lady’s horsemanship that attracted Marchmont, but she filed away the information. She pondered it later that night when she woke from a bad dream about the harem.
The next morning, she, too, was up at dawn.
Marchmont House
Early Thursday morning
Jarvis stood in the anteroom, clutching her umbrella.
Under Dove the butler’s disapproving glare, she spoke rapidly to a barely awake Duke of Marchmont.
“I am so sorry to trouble you at this hour, Your Grace, but Lord Lexham has already gone out and Lady Lexham is in bed with a headache and not to be disturbed and none of Miss Lexham’s sisters or brothers has called yet this morning and I did not know what to do.” She took a deep breath and hurried on, “Your Grace, so far as I know, Miss Lexham has not been on a horse in twelve years, and she doesn’t know London. She took a groom with her, but I fear he doesn’t realize how long it’s been since she rode or how little she knows of London and I’m sure he doesn’t understand my mistress at all and it is very easy for her to—er—confuse the servants, especially the men.”
In other words, Marchmont thought, Zoe had gone out against her father’s orders and lied to the stablemen to get her way…exactly as she used to do.
He was not amused.
He had not slept well.
On Tuesday night the Duke of York had assured him that the Prince Regent would invite Zoe to the Birthday Drawing Room.
On Tuesday night, Marchmont had felt confident the matter was settled. He was not so confident at present.
Last night at Almack’s, the Duke of Marchmont was once more the topic of conversation. A highly exaggerated and distorted version of events in the Green Park, on Grafton Street, and in the dressmaker’s shop circulated through Almack’s ballroom.
He’d made light of it, as he always did. When Adderwood asked whether it was true that Miss Lexham had thrown a footstool at him, the duke replied, “I heard it was a book of fashion designs. In any event, it would hardly be the first time a lady has hurled a missile at my head and is unlikely to be the last. Harriette Wilson once threw a snuffbox at me, as I recall.”
