“After you,” he said.
If it were a test, he had passed. When the two women, who looked as alike as chalk and cheese, were seated, he also sat.
“I admit I worried when you both disappeared last evening,” he said after all greetings and pleasantries over the day’s weather had been made.
Mother and daughter glanced at one another. He supposed that was another intimate matter he ought not to have mentioned. What if Lady Purity had got her monthly flow unexpectedly?He was a dolt to make reference to their leaving when they both appeared healthy.
Grinding his teeth at his own stupidity, he waited.
“I can tell you’re working out how inappropriate was your last remark,” Lady Diamond said. “Regardless, I shall answer because I believe you mean well. My daughter had a headache yesterday but elected to go to the ball. When it grew too painful, we came home.”
“After apologizing to my upcoming dance partners,” Lady Purity said.
“You didn’t apologize tome,” Matthew quipped, knowing he sounded childish, but he had been worried for nothing.
“Oh dear.” Lady Purity frowned. “We asked the floor manager to contact everyone on the list with whom we didn’t speak personally. I do hope there weren’t others who were left wondering. If so, I shall be considered very rude.”
Matthew reined in his irritation. All that mattered was she felt better.
“Are you fully recovered today?”
“I am. Thank you for coming and for asking.”
Her smile seemed genuine, and earning it pleased him immensely.
“I confess I finished out the night having danced with so many ladies, I cannot remember their names. Is it the habit of the men to write down a list of their partners?”
This struck the two Diamond women as funny, for they both smiled, and then, despite their hair color, they looked very similar indeed.
“I believe the gentleman is only supposed to remember one lady in particular who strikes him, or at the most two,” Lady Diamond said.
Lady Purity disagreed. “If you had more with whom you wished to visit, or even to whom you asked for a visit — as I instructed you — then when you got home, you ought to have written their names down directly while thinking of their faces.”
This was news to Matthew. It seemed to be a novel idea for Lady Diamond, too, for she frowned at her daughter.
“Is that what you do?” her mother asked.
Lady Purity nodded emphatically. “Yes. It helps me recall people’s names.”
Matthew was charmed by this vignette, a conversation in which all three of them were on an even keel.
“Lady Diamond, may I ask how you kept all the names straight in your mind when you were your daughter’s age attending assemblies?”
She considered. “I spent my youth in Bath with a much smaller social circle, so I knew everyone, and then when I came to London, I met Lord Diamond very quickly.”
“Hence, you didn’t have to be bothered by recalling other gentlemenafteryou met your intended?”
“Precisely,” Lady Diamond said. “But I would heed my daughter’s idea. She is far more organized than I ever could hope to be.” She looked at Purity with admiration. “I shall try it when I go visiting and meet the Season’s new crop of young ladies.”
“Does the act of writing the names down secure them in one’s memory?” Matthew asked.
“Somewhat,” Lady Purity said. “Then in the morning, you must look over the names and think of their faces again. If you do that over a few more evenings and mornings, they should be firmly planted in the fertile soil of your brain.”
“I promise to try it,” he said, having no intention of keeping a journal of the insipid folks he met.
They fell silent. No tea was called for, and truly, Matthew didn’t know what was supposed to occur. If he were courting her, he assumed he would be invited to dinner. As it was, he wondered if he could ensure himself more time with her, perhaps even alone, if he let her mother in on his dreadful failings.
“I confess I hate any whiff of subterfuge,” Matthew began. “Thus, I must ask whether Lady Purity has made mention of my need for assistance in finding a wife.”
