“We once adored our father,” Gwendolyn reminded her.
“Yes, before we knew who he truly was.”
Captain Sir John Lanscarr had been proud to be a gambler. When he could have stayed at Wiltham with his motherless daughters, he’d left, always to search for the next game.
The Lanscarr sisters had spent most of their young lives waiting in anxious anticipation for the moment he paid a visit. What would then follow were days when they’d done all in their power to please him so he wouldn’t leave again.
He’d always left.
Dara shook her head. “We were misled,” she said.
Another truth.
“Mr. Steele is not Papa,” Gwendolyn said.
“Or so you hope.”
A third truth.
“I will be careful,” Gwendolyn promised.
In response, Dara threw her arms around her and gave her a fierce hug as if offering a cloak of protection. “Elise and I will always be here for you.”
“I do know that.”
“And Tweedie, too.” She referred to her great-aunt who had traveled with them to London and had served as the Lanscarr sisters’ chaperone.
“Of course.”
They bowed their heads together as they’d done as children. Sisterly love circled them. Yes, Gwendolyn wished Dara was less managing. Just as, she was certain, Dara wished Gwendolyn was more malleable.
A knock on the house’s front door interrupted them.
Gwendolyn sat up, all senses alert. She rose and moved a few steps so that she could see out the window, even as Herald, pulling his black jacket over his shirtsleeves and waistcoat, hurried forward to open the door.
Dara came to her feet, as well. The door between the front sitting room and hall was half-open as they had left it. She glanced at Gwendolyn, who was frustrated she could not see the front step. “Do you see anyone?” she whispered.
Gwendolyn shook her head. She tried to breathe naturally... but she was too aware that something momentous was about to happen.
You will receive an invitation. Accept it.
They heard someone speak to Herald. It was a young male voice, not Mr. Steele’s. “This is from Lady Orpington. I am to wait for an answer.”
Lady Orpington? Gwendolyn had never heard of her. She moved now toward the sitting room door so she could discreetly catch a look at the servant on the step. He wore an expensive-looking wig and was dressed in plum-colored livery.
Dara came up beside her and clamped a hand on her arm, gripping it tightly as if in alarm—or excitement? Her expression was hard to read.
Herald told the messenger that he should wait on the step. He shut the door. Michael and Dara’s house was a fine one but small. There was no room for messengers to cool their heels and allow the family privacy, so he’d left him outside.
With great ceremony, Herald walked the few steps it took to enter the sitting room and said, “An invitation from Lady Orpington. She requests an immediate answer.”
Gwendolyn took the letter, her name written with great flourish on the outside. She cracked the wax seal and read what was written before looking to Dara. “She requests I call upon her tomorrow morning. She will send a coach. Do we know Lady Orpington?”
Her question was Dara’s cue to rip the letter from Gwendolyn’s hands as if she needed to read the message herself. “Yes, we know of her. Gwendolyn, she is one of the grand dames of Society. The highest of the high. The Top One Hundred Families of England... and she wishesyouto call on her in the morning? How does she know you?”
“Mr. Steele,” she reminded her sister. “He told me to expect an invitation. I am to go.”
Dara shook her head in disbelief, offering the letter back. “How does he find entrée to half the places in Society we have found him?”
