“Young ladies! Pretty young ladies! Come here at once. The party has begun.”
Amity was almost positive this was Lord Peabody, for she’d heard his voice in the outer room of the shop when he stopped in with Lady Peabody to order the chocolates.
“My lord,” she said and curtsied. Looking sideways, she realized Charlotte was frozen, and quickly tugged on her sister’s black velvet mantle until she, too, bobbed low.
After his lordship nodded in return, they rose.
“You must be the St. Germain sisters. Naughty, naughty, you are late. Your dinner partners await you in the parlor. Gerald, take their cloaks.”
Again, the butler stepped toward them, and again, Amity fended him off.
“Excuse me, Lord Peabody, but we are not the St. Germain sisters, nor are we guests.”
“They are from Rare Confectionery,” came another voice. This time Lady Peabody crossed the foyer. She slipped her hand through her husband’s arm. “I wondered where you’d got to, my love,” she said, looking fondly at the older gentleman. “Now I understand, for you are drawn to a lovely face the way a bee goes to a flower, and here we have two lovelyyoungwomen.”
Lord Peabody laughed. “You know I only look, my love.”
Amity exchanged a glance with Charlotte.
“My lady,” she began again, “we have the chocolates you ordered. There must have been a misunderstanding, for we were told your party wouldn’t start for another hour. We never would have barged in if we’d known it had already started.”
“But then we wouldn’t have our delicious chocolates, would we?” Lady Peabody asked, entirely unconcerned by their late arrival.
At the chiming of the doorbell, their butler moved quickly from their small group to the door, returning with a note which he handed to his lordship.
“What does it say?” Lady Peabody asked.
“No St. Germain sisters, my love. One has a headache and the other thinks she may get one at any moment. They send their regrets.”
A look of annoyance crossed Lady Peabody’s face. “What a nuisance! In my day, if one had a megrim, one simply bore it bravely and carried on, especially if one had a commitment.” Then she stared at Amity and Charlotte. “Gerald, take their mantles. We mustn’t keep our other guests waiting.”
Charlotte giggled nervously, but Amity clutched her mantle around her with her free hand while her other still held the sack containing three large tins of chocolates.
“My lady, what can you mean?” she asked.
“Miss Rare-Foure, you are a respectable young woman, dressed appropriately for the evening, as is your sister. Are either of you engaged?”
“No, my lady, but—”
“I consider you both to be heaven sent. I have two single gentlemen in my drawing room expecting to have dinner partners. And now they shall.”
“Oh, no,” Amity began, “that hardly seems—”
“Please, dear sister,” Charlotte entreated her, “we have been invited. We mustn’t be rude to our host and hostess, and I am not going to whistle, I promise. Mother would want us to help out Lady Peabody, don’t you think?”
Amity eyed her sister, who’d suddenly matured into a reasonable person.
“Yes, please,” Lord Peabody said, with a note of teasing that made his wife dig her elbow into his side.
“Very well,” Amity said, finally giving the butler her mantle as Charlotte had already done. “In that case, I thank you for allowing us to be part of your evening. The chocolates,” she reminded them, removing the tins from the sack, which she also gave to their butler.
“Take them, my love,” Lady Peabody ordered her husband. “Oh, such pretty containers. We shall put them on the sideboard for after dinner. The chocolates will go so well with port or sherry. Did you manage to make them look like elephants?”
Lady Peabody didn’t wait for a response as she and her husband led them into the drawing room. Amity felt a little lightheaded. Despite her comportment in the foyer, Charlotte was given to rather silly behavior at times. Furthermore, she, herself, was equally inexperienced in the ways of a fancy party with—
Lord Pelham!
Her eyes found him as soon as she entered the room and their hosts stepped to the side.
