“How will I know you’re finding success with your plan?”
“By the screaming, of course.”
Gideon’s eyes widened. “There’s going to be screaming?”
“It would hardly be a worthy distraction if there wasn’t screaming.” With that, Adelaide strode into motion, slipped around Gideon, scooped up her reticule from the fainting couch, and headed for the door, pretending she didn’t hear the protests he voiced as she hurried into the hallway.
It took her less than a minute to find her way to the kitchen, smiling at a footman who didn’t hesitate to find her a few pieces of bread when she told him she needed it to settle a queasy stomach. After thanking the man, she headed through a door leading to the back courtyard, nodded to some of the other guests, then set her sights on her cousin, Charles, who was still sitting by the fountain, exactly where she’d left him what seemed like eons ago.
“I’ve brought bread,” she called in an overly loud voice, knowing it would attract attention from the guests lingering on the terrace.
Charles frowned as she drew to a stop beside him. “Why are you bringing me bread?”
“I thought you might enjoy feeding the swans. It could put you in a more charitable frame of mind.”
Charles directed his frown toward three swans that were heading their direction. “From what I’ve observed about these swans as I’ve contemplated the dismal state of my life out here, they’re not what I’d consider friendly.”
“Perhaps some bread will change that.” Adelaide waved one of the slices at the swans, leaning over the edge of the fountainin what she hoped would be seen as a casual move. “Why, look how graceful they are, Charles, and...”
Anything else she might have been thinking about saying got lost when the swans began emitting a trumpeting sound right before charging her way.
All too quickly, they were almost upon her, but when she turned to remove herself from the situation, her bustle shifted and threw her off balance, and before she knew it, she was tumbling into the water.
Regrettably, even though she’d been planning on purposely falling into the fountain at some point to provide Gideon with the distraction he needed, she’d certainly not been intending to plunge headfirst into downright freezing water, nor had she even considered the notion that her foray into the fountain would be accompanied by an attack of vicious creatures that seemed to have murderous intentions on their minds.
Four
Gideon reined Zeus, his temperamental beast of a stallion, to a stop and swung from the saddle as the events of the previous night cavorted through his mind yet again.
He’d not been in accord with Adelaide’s plan to provide him with a much-needed distraction, but she’d given him a diversion of epic proportions.
It had barely taken her the five minutes she’d claimed to need before the sound of screaming reached him, an occurrence that caused guests to stream from Mrs. Nelson’s house and rush to gawk at what was unfolding around a fountain in the back courtyard.
He’d missed the actual event since he’d slung Fitzsimmons over his shoulder and hauled him to his waiting carriage once he realized the guests had been sufficiently distracted. Thankfully, he’d not taken note of a single person witnessing the odd sight of a member of the Four Hundred lugging an unconscious man away from a dinner party.
By the time he’d gotten Frank ensconced in the carriage, where two of his associates who doubled as groomsmen assuredhim they’d keep him secured until he returned, the screaming, shrieking, and obvious mayhem had come to an end.
Wanting to ascertain Adelaide had survived whatever havoc she’d enacted, he’d slipped through the shadows and back to the courtyard, nodding to guests who were strolling toward the ballroom. The name he heard whispered time and again left him with the distinct impression Adelaide’s plan might have exceeded the termchaotic.
It hadn’t taken long before the particulars of Adelaide’s latest disaster reached his ears, with Miss Cynthia Wilcox hustling to his side and taking hold of his arm, all aflutter to discuss everything that had transpired moments before. To say he’d been taken aback regarding the details of what Adelaide had experienced—and in aid to him, no less—was an understatement.
It didn’t come as much of a surprise that she’d chosen the fountain to use as a diversion. She’d obviously been intending to suffer a plunge into the water, or at least a near tumble. However, it was doubtful she’d been expecting an assault by swans, that unfortunate circumstance responsible for her almost drowning after the birds attacked. Fortunately, her cousin, Mr. Charles Wetzel, had been close at hand and jumped into the fountain to save her.
Charles’s rescue attempt evidently didn’t go smoothly because additional swans went on the rampage as he, from what Cynthia Wilcox disclosed, tried to valiantly fight them off as he managed to get Adelaide’s head above water amidst an assault by creatures everyone, up until that point, had considered tranquil birds that lent a beautiful atmosphere to Mrs. Nelson’s well-maintained estate.
Tranquility had been in short supply once the birds went on the offensive. And if attacking swans wasn’t a peculiar enough sight for the guests, the peculiarity, in Cynthia’s opinion, had turned downright remarkable when Chef Gagneux, Mrs. Nelson’s famed culinary artist, rushed toward the fountain in anattempt to save Adelaide and Charles, all while balancing two gold platters filled with one of the main courses.
By the time Chef Gagneux reached the fountain, the swans were in a frenzy, and after one of the birds took note of the chef and his flagship dish,Canards a la Rouennaise, the madness of the situation increased tenfold.
From all accounts, no one was exactly certain if the swans abandoned their assault on Adelaide and Charles because they were infuriated that Chef Gagneux was attempting to draw their attention with a dish made from pressed duck and had taken offense that their near relations were being served up on a platter, or if they didn’t mind that at all and simply wanted to sample the dish for themselves, which, frankly, was a far more troubling thought.
Nevertheless, whatever the reason, the swans set their sights on Chef Gagneux and proceeded to engage in a full-on assault.
It was evident the chef’s determination to save Adelaide and Charles only went so far because he didn’t hesitate to throw Mrs. Nelson’s expensive platters at the advancing swans, his culinary masterpiece going airborne the second he let the plates fly. Pieces of pressed duck began raining down on the assembled guests, as did the sauce that accompanied the duck, which was why many ladies, including Sophia Campanini, immediately took leave of the dinner party, their gowns splattered with droplets of what looked exactly like blood.
The besieged chef didn’t linger to notice the damage his dish caused. The last anyone saw of him, he was bolting across the back courtyard, swans nipping at his heels, yelling over his shoulder he wouldn’t be back to complete the midnight supper—in fact, he wouldn’t step foot on the estate again until Mrs. Nelson got rid of every swan once and for all.
To say Mrs. Nelson was displeased with Adelaide was an understatement.
