Another moan.
Oh, the tragedy of it! Of course, it hadn’t been a mouse!
She should have turned away quickly. She ought to have realized what she had done and pretended nothing was amiss.
But noooo! She’d had to draw attention to it, and to the fact that she was touching it.
Had she even petted it once or twice?
Another, even louder moan.
A knock sounded on the door but then it pushed open without the person on the other side awaiting a response. “Emily, are you unwell?”
“Rhoda?” Emily closed one eye and squinted to see if the person entering matched the voice.
“What on earth are you doing?” Oh, yes, the voice belonged to Rhoda. The human blur grew larger until Emily could ever so slightly make out her friend’s teasing smile. “You look odd. What have you done to your glasses? One eye is larger than the other.”
Emily explained the afternoon’s trials in as short a version as possible. “And now I cannot locate my spare pair of spectacles, and I’ve no maid to assist me with any of this.” She hated feeling so disconnected. People with perfect vision did not understand this sensation. If they had to experience even one day with her miserable eyesight, they’d be singing their gratitude daily.
“You silly girl.” Rhoda paced across the room, reached up, and made a jerking motion. Ah, that was where they’d placed the bell pull. “I’m calling for a maid, you nitwit.” She then began scooping various garments off the floor and holding them up for inspection. “What have you packed? Your usual? If you don’t wish to live the rest of your life in Wales, we’ll need to come up with gowns more appealing than these.”
“My predicament! What of yours?” It seemed like ages since they’d seen one another. “And I’m dreadfully sorry. Mother wouldn’t allow me to attend the garden party with you. You didn’t experience any unwanted attention, did you?” Emily wished she could see Rhoda’s face. She had a feeling Rhoda wouldn’t admit to needing assistance where men were concerned.
Rhoda froze for the slightest moment before bending down again and then tossing another garment onto the huge bed. “Where do you think you put the spectacles? Inside the trunk? Did you wrap them in a cloth or something? Could they be with your jewelry?”
“In a little green drawstring bag.”
“Hmph.” Rhoda searched around. Apparently as fruitlessly as Emily had. “I don’t see anything like it.”
“Nothing untoward has happened, has it?” Emily asked. Rhoda had changed this past winter. St. John’s passing had left her less forthcoming, less… optimistic. Rhoda, Cecily, Sophia, and Emily had shared nearly everything up until recently. It seemed they all had secrets now.
Locating a seat that Emily hadn’t draped in garments, Rhoda’s blurred shape made herself comfortable. “Why? What have you heard?”
Oh, dear, had somebody said something at the garden party! “You do know, don’t you?” Rhoda must be aware of the bet. How else could Sophia lure her away from London? “Sophia didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
Oh, dear.
“Well.” Emily really wished she weren’t the person to deliver such distasteful news to her friend. “It seems that some sort of bet has been placed. At White’s.”
“About me?” Rhoda must have sensed that the bet was not an innocent one, for her voice had that dead, hopeless quality. Just like shortly after St. John’s death.
Emily pushed herself off the floor and, hands outstretched, waded through the contents of her trunk until she somehow managed to find her way to the window. When she got there, she knelt on the floor and peered into her friend’s face. Ah, much better.
Now, how to put this…
“One of the members, one of the less reputable ones, if I say so myself. Apparently, White’s isn’t as discriminating as they’d like people to believe. By the way, have you heard that Lord Blakely has been denied? His father, of course.” But wait. She’d veered from her original point considerably.
Rhoda had narrowed her eyes in frustration by this point. “Emily. What about this bet?”
“Oh, yes, the bet. Well… the bet is about, um… you.” Oh, but this next detail was most unpleasant. “Someone has spread a dreadful rumor that you, er, well, lifted your skirts for St. John… um, before he met his end.”
A part of Emily wished she could place her own bet at White’s! She’d bet them all that Rhoda had done no such thing! And then she’d win ten thousand pounds!
Or possibly lose it. Because a part of her—a teeny tiny part, mind you—niggled her with doubt.
Rhoda enjoyed male attention.
