CHAPTER1
The carriage ambling up the winding approach of Sherborne Manor was too early to be carrying Lady Clementine Hammond. Vivi was in the gardens when she first spied it, directing the head gardener on the final plans for the life-size chessboard she wished to be constructed on the north lawn.
“The squares must be painted, not powdered, Shipley,” she said, frowning from beneath the brim of her straw hat as she watched the mysterious carriage’s slow progression. “I want it to resemble a chessboard as closely as you can possibly manage, but we also need to consider the necessity of keeping our lady guests’ hems from being soiled.”
Soiled hems simply wouldnotdo at a house party being held by the Duchess of Bradford. She had a reputation to uphold, after all. Vivi went to extraordinary lengths to make certain her guests left her every fête with a smile and a sigh over how wonderfully delightful even the smallest detail had been.
The food was always the finest to be served, the guests in attendance were hand-chosen by Vivi and certain to be witty and amusing, and every facet, from the flowers to the entertainments to the beating of the carpets, was carefully and strategically plotted and overseen by Vivi herself.
“Of course, Your Grace,” Shipley said agreeably. “I wouldn’t dream of powdering the lawn.”
“I’m relieved to hear it,” she said distractedly, for the carriage was drawing nearer, and from her vantage point in the gardens, she recognized the familiar crest on the door. What in heaven’s name was her mother-in-law doing, arriving at Sherborne Manor when Vivi was about to host the grandest house party she had held yet? “Please also see the roses are cut and delivered to the main house for placement the morning my guests first begin arriving. I want the blossoms to be fresh, so be sure to select tightly furled buds rather than flowers in full bloom. The mess of dropping petals is so very disagreeable.”
“I’ll be certain to send only the best buds, Your Grace,” the head gardener reassured her.
She had no reason to require the reassurance. She knew Shipley was an incredibly competent fellow, for she had hired him herself in her husband’s extended absence, the gardens having been left overgrown and in abysmal condition. Over the past year, and under her guidance, the gardens had been painstakingly restored to their former glory. But this house party was important to Vivi. Incredibly important, and she wanted everything to be perfect.
Which was why she needed to address the arrival of that blasted carriage.
“Thank you, Shipley,” she said, offering him a smile. “I am a confident hostess with you at the helm of the Sherborne Manor gardens. Now, I must attend to some other matters.”
The head gardener bowed. “Of course, Your Grace.”
Vivi’s feet were moving, carrying her through the gardens toward the main house. She had spent the morning in boots and a serviceable day gown with her old straw hat—secretly her favorite attire. The boots were broken in and the gown worn and soft from overuse, her hat ten years out of style and quite a monstrosity, its massive brim perfect for keeping the sun from making freckles appear on her forehead and nose.
Ordinarily, she wouldn’t greet the august lady in such an undignified state. But the carriage was gliding toward the front portico now, out of sight, and she needed to stop the dowager before she became too settled and inform her mother-in-law that a house party was about to begin. The dowager detested social gatherings.
Heavens, the dowager detested people. Vivi would never know how the woman could have produced a son as gregarious and magnetic and smoothly charming as Court. Although she was a woman grown of six-and-twenty, the dowager never failed to make Vivi feel as if she were a girl in short skirts, in need of remonstration and the iron rule of a stern governess.
What would she do if her mother-in-law insisted on remaining as a guest? They would have a veritable thundercloud looming over the entire affair, creating a pall not even the fine delicacies her chef cooked up, nor the endless entertainments she had devised, would lift.
It would be an unmitigated disaster.
Vivi’s feet flew faster. She slipped in a side door and hastened to the entry hall, praying she wouldn’t be too late.
A flurry ofYour Graces reached her as the tattered hem of her old gray gown swished about her boots and her soles clicked on the polished parquet. She stopped to find the housekeeper, Mrs. Porritt, approaching with a chatelaine jingling at her waist. On her heels was the chambermaid who had been directed to oversee the cleaning of all the bedchambers in the west wing.
Suppressing a sigh, Vivi turned her attention toward the capable housekeeper first, in deference to her position. “Yes, Mrs. Porritt?”
“Shall I have the duke’s bedchamber aired out and freshened, Your Grace?” the housekeeper asked.
The duke? Her husband, the duke? The man she hadn’t seen in a year? The man whom she had loved since she’d been but a girl meeting her older brother Percy’s school chum for the first time?
If only.
But no, she had abandoned the hope that the man she had married would ever return to her. Court had left the morning after their wedding day, bidding her farewell when she had only just returned from a morning ride, and as far as she knew, he had yet to come back to England. As the tales of his adventures—complete with scandal and dubious associations with other women—had reached her, she had been forced to concede it was entirely possible the man she had loved had been nothing but a chimera. He was as lost to her now as Percy was.
“Of course not, Mrs. Porritt,” she declined, tamping down the accompanying sadness at the thought of her beloved brother. “His Grace is not in residence here at Sherborne Manor, as you know. Such an effort won’t be necessary.”
“But, Your Grace—” the staid housekeeper protested in an unusual show of persistence.
“Not now, if you please,” Vivi interrupted, turning toward the chambermaid, ever cognizant of the arriving carriage and the need to address it and its occupant both. “Lumley, what do you require?”
“The green bedchamber appears to have water damage, Your Grace,” the maid said, her gaze darting between Vivi and the housekeeper. “A spring storm brought down one of the old trees in the garden, and the branches must have punctured the roof. One of the girls has been to the attic, she has, and reports a fair bit of damage above, as well as the plaster below in the guest room.”
“Not the green chamber,” she muttered, for it was where she had been intent upon placing the meddling Marchioness of Featherstone. “How bad is it, Lumley?”
“I’m sure I couldn’t say the extent for myself, Your Grace,” Lumley said, lowering her head with humility. “Perhaps Mrs. Porritt or Mr. Alderson might know better than I myself would.”
