The scene was a study in calculated abundance: fountains spouting, birds trilling, a dozen footmen in immaculate livery, and at the center, three or four clusters of women gossiping in low, melodious tones while their husbands made sport of lawn bowling at a respectful distance.
"I see the cravat wars are well underway," Lavinia remarked, nodding at a group of gentlemen whose collective display of neckwear would have bankrupted a lesser nation.
"Last year’s champion was Lord Blakemore, but I think the smart money is on Mr. Caversham this season," Nancy replied. "His man is said to starch with mutton suet."
Frances leaned in, "Which one is Mr. Caversham?"
"The one in the lemon waistcoat," Lavinia supplied. "I am told he can tie a Gordian knot with his eyes closed."
Nancy cackled, "You are wasted as a spinster, Lavinia. If only men admired wit as they do a well-turned ankle, you would have been Duchess of All England years ago."
"Men admire wit in theory," Lavinia said, surveying the crowd, "but in practice, they flee from it as from the pox."
Frances gripped her arm. "Hush, they’ll hear you."
"I hope they do," Nancy said, steering them toward a table loaded with so many confections it threatened structural collapse.
“Oh, Lavinia!" Hester Green, the Duchess of Lushton, said as she rose from her seat beneath the pavilion’s awning. And so did Fiona Glacion, the Duchess of Craton. They were all Lavinia’s friends from a charity group that she contributed to before her father’s death, though her situation had caused her to withdraw somewhat from her friends.
"Lavinia, at last!" Fiona embraced her. "You must sit with us. We are just debating the relative merits of English and French strawberries."
Fiona bobbed her head. "I say the English are sweeter, but Hester claims the French are more—" she paused, struggling for the word, "vivacious."
"Is that so?" Lavinia seated herself beside them. "Frances, what do you think? You have the most refined palate of us all."
Frances colored at the attention. "I’ve never had a French strawberry, but the ones from Kent are delicious."
"Then you are a patriot, as am I," Fiona declared, beaming. "Though I suspect Hester admires anything with a French name."
Nancy poured herself a lemonade, ignoring the delicate glasses and filling a water tumbler instead. "I shall be content so long as we have a tart with real custard. The last gathering I attended served a custard so thin you could have drunk it from a teacup."
They fell into easy conversation, the sort that never strayed near any truly dangerous subject but always hovered perilously close. Lavinia found herself relaxing, though she was aware of the stares from other tables—glances that darted toward her and then away again, as if she carried the family debt as a visible accessory.
The gossip was subtle but constant. She knew exactly what they whispered, because she’d muttered the same about others in her younger years: Poor dear, so proud in her patched blue dress. Will she ever marry, or will she end up as companion to some dreadful dowager? How will they keep the manor, now the creditors have closed in?
She kept her chin up and her conversation sparkling, but she felt the pressure of it on the back of her neck like a persistent, invisible finger.
Frances, meanwhile, was busy losing a staring contest with a young man at the lemonade table. He was new to the area—Lavinia thought his name was Perry or Percy—and he had the look of a man who would propose if you so much as handed him a plate of cake.
"Lady Frances," said Hester, following her gaze, "I believe you have an admirer."
Frances startled. "Oh! No, surely not. I mean, perhaps he is looking at Lady Lavinia."
"Not at all," Nancy said. "He is terrified of Lady Lavinia. See how he flinched when she looked his way?"
"I have that effect," Lavinia said. She bit into a tart, letting the conversation swirl around her, her thoughts drifting.
It had been six months since the masquerade. Six months since she’d danced with the mysterious man in the black mask, who had spoken to her as an equal, who had not once asked about her dowry or her prospects or why she’d chosen to stand alone at the edge of the ballroom.
She sometimes thought of him while lying awake at night, not for what he’d said, but for how it had felt to be understood.
Lavinia glanced around the garden, half-expecting to see him in disguise, then chided herself for the fantasy. A man like that would never attend a daylight party, not when he could haunt the shadows.
"Shall we walk, Frances?" she said, eager for movement.
Frances nodded, and together they meandered along the box hedge toward the rose trellis. The sun was higher now, and the garden was filled with the scent of cut grass and something faintly spicy. Frances kept glancing over her shoulder toward the lemonade table, and at last Lavinia relented.
"If you wish to speak to him, go on," she said, smiling. "You do not require a chaperone on a garden path, especially not when all of London’s matrons are within earshot."
