The vicar went on, tones rolling around the room like church bells. “Perhaps there has simply been some mistake.” He rose from his chair and approached the desk, smiling gently and holding his hand out for the will. “Surely you got those bequests confused, Mr. Nancarrow? Surely the snuffbox was meant to go to my sister, and the statues to Mrs. Molesey? They are... rather more to her taste, I believe.”
The lady in question snorted again at this euphemism.
Mr. Nancarrow’s timidity went icy at this affront to his professional competence. “I assure you, Mr. Oliver, there has been no mistake. Mrs. Abington made herself perfectly clear in this point on several occasions.” Two spots of red appeared in his cheeks. “Though I beg you to spare me from quoting her remarks verbatim.”
“Of course he’s not mistaken,” Mrs. Molesey said with a sharp little laugh. “What would be the point of leaving me all those pretty statues, and nowhere to show them off? But you, Ann—you have such a charming home, with so many charming corners to fill. You can place Bella’s artworks where all your charming friends can admire them.”
She laughed harder as Lady Summerville spluttered, and the viscount began to look alarmed at the way his lady’s hand fisted tighter and tighter on his arm, pulling the fabric of his coat dangerously taut.
Mr. Oliver saw this and moved hastily, coming around to his sister’s side and bending down toward her ear for a fiercely whispered conference.
Penelope edged toward the solicitor, who was mopping at his brow with a handkerchief. Poor man, he must have been dreading this. “Was there a bequest for me, Mr. Nancarrow?”
“Hmm?” The solicitor blinked, then basked in relief at having been asked a simple question in a friendly tone. “Oh, did I not say? I am terribly sorry. Let me see... yes. You, Mrs. Flood, are bequeathed the Abington beehives. Or rather the care of them, since it specifies they are to remain at Abington.”
“The hives?” Penelope exclaimed.
Mr. Oliver’s head came up, and his surprised eyes met hers.
“But...” She swallowed her objections for poor Mr. Nancarrow’s sake. Yet it was such an odd bequest: the vicar was an able beekeeper in his own right, more than capable of handling half a dozen simple skeps in addition to his own more scientific hives.
What on earth had Isabella been playing at?
She retreated to the window again, uncomfortably aware of the vicar’s eyes following her, his expression one of careful, virtuous consternation.
Lady Summerville was whispering in a low hiss like a kettle on the boil, and her husband was blustering back as he tried to free himself from her grip.
Mrs. Molesey was sitting regally back to watch, as if the rest of the party were fools capering to entertain her.
Penelope looked out the window—which had an excellent view of both the bee garden and the maze that held Lady Summerville’s new statue collection—and imagined she could hear Isabella’s mischievous laugh on the wind, one final time.
There was no sweeter privilege of motherhood than knocking at dawn on the door of one’s self-indulgent son, only to observe when the door creaked open that he was spine-shudderingly, knee-wobblingly, and stomach-churningly hungover.
“Good morning, my dear,” Agatha trilled extra-brightly, smugness wrapping around her like a warm, comforting shawl.
Sydney managed a pained whimper in response. Heavens, but he looked like he’d been turned inside out and then back again and his skin no longer hung quite correctly on his bones.
Agatha let her voice turn syrup-sweet. “What say I make you something special for breakfast? Kippers and bacon? Eggs and gravy? Jellied eel in a brandy sauce?”
Sydney’s face went from white to green and then gone, as he slammed the door in her face—presumably to have a private tête-à-tête with his chamber pot.
The slam of the door and Agatha’s full-throated cackle brought Eliza blinking out of her room, leaning on the door and peering around into the hall. “Ma’am?”
“You’ll have to run the shop today,” Agatha told her. “Sydney’s a little the worse for wear, and I must drive to Melliton with the Crewe silk samples.” Yesterday she had set one of the newer apprentices, Jane, to cutting the bolt of shimmering brocade into precise squares, ready to be tipped in with the printed pages and bound with the magazine.
It had been one of Thomas’s best ideas, including fabric from all the finest weaving works—not only silks, but wool and chintzes and patterned calicos, and the occasional lush velvet in winter. It also gave them an excuse to solicit advertisements from London modistes, to tempt ladies who wanted something more complex or ambitious than their own needles and skills could supply.
“Of course, ma’am,” Eliza said, tucking an errant lock behind her ear. “Will you be stopping over in Melliton?”
Agatha was impressed despite herself: the girl’s question had almost sounded innocent. Though she was obliquely asking if she and Sydney were to be left alone for an entire night.
“Absolutely not,” she said repressively, and had the satisfaction of seeing her apprentice’s face fall just a little. The print-shop always took precedence over romance; it took precedence over everything. “We have Mr. Thisburton coming round tomorrow morning, remember.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Eliza bobbed a curtsey—an occasional tic from her old life as a maid in the Countess of Moth’s house—and hurried to wash her face and dress for the day.
Agatha made her way downstairs to unlock the workroom and let in the half-dozen workers clustered on the threshold. They all streamed in with the dawn, nodding to their employer. Soon the early morning quiet yielded to noise as everyone went about the makeready: preparing formes, woodblocks, paper, and ink for the day’s jobbing. Eliza had gathered her tools and a pewter plate readied with musical staves, then settled into the shop front, tidy and smiling and ready to punch notes and hand-engrave crescendos until the day’s first customers arrived.
Agatha paused in the doorway between shop and workroom and surveyed her small kingdom, letting herself briefly bask in the sounds of a machine in good working order. The business would probably tick along steadily until evening—butGriffin’s Menageriewas still the bulwark on which the business stood firm. For now, anyway. And theMenageriehad to be printed on the speedier press at Melliton.
