Everyone laughed as they raised their glasses and drank to a happy evening, Frances beginning to relax again and stop straining to hear background voices.
“Oh look, there’s Lydia,” observed Beatrice, and Frances turned her head to see her dark-haired friend hurrying towards them with a somewhat anxious expression on her face. “She doesn’t look very happy, does she?”
“I’m sure we can resolve that with champagne and good company,” Ambrose suggested to Lady Scovell’s approval, swiping another glass from a passing tray and giving it to Lydia as soon as she reached them.
“Frances, I must talk to you alone,” Lydia whispered in her friend’s ear once the necessary ceremony of polite greetings was done. “Come to the retiring rooms with me.”
“Are you well, Lydia?” Frances whispered back. “I have some muslins in my bag if your monthly visitor has come unexpectedly.”
Lydia shook her head.
“I am well. This is…something else. I really have to speak with you privately. You must come now.”
Wondering what on earth could have happened to upset her usually stolid, horse-obsessed friend, Frances nodded.
“Lydia and I must go the retiring rooms,” she announced, catching her mother’s eye and hoping that Helen Harcourt would reach the same mistaken first conclusion as Frances had done. “We will be back presently.”
Lady Scovell nodded sympathetically.
“We will take good care of Ambrose until you return, my dear. Do you need…?”
Discreetly, she raised her own bag a little but Frances shook her head. Taking Lydia’s arm, she walked with her back into the main corridor, still none the wiser as to what might have sparked such urgency.
“What has happened, Lydia? Is your family well? Has there been some incident tonight?”
“No, nothing like that. Just wait, I must find us a quiet space.”
Lydia had walked past the main ladies’ retiring room and was now trying the handles on other doors in that corridor, which all seemed to lead to either storage cupboards or small rooms already occupied by groups of ladies either chattering or fixing one another’s hair or dress.
At last, they reached a room that seemed to be filled only with clean spare chamber pots, likely not to be needed until the guests had drunk more champagne and the servants began to empty those already in the retiring rooms.
“This will do,” Lydia pronounced and pulled Frances inside, closing the door behind them and then pulling a folded pamphlet from her pocket.
“What is that?” Frances asked blankly as her friend held out the printed paper towards her.
“One of the most popular scandal sheets in London. Read the column on the right of the second page.”
“Why? Oh, alright, if you insist,” replied Frances, moving closer to the candlestick on the mantelpiece and complying with Lydia’s request despite not understanding it. “‘A reliable source informs me that…”
Frances gasped and almost dropped the pamphlet on the floor as she reached the end of the sentence.
“‘…that the Duke of Westall’s recent marriage is not what it seems. The Duke and Duchess of Westall are known to be living separate lives. Despite a month of supposedly wedded bliss, the lady in question is stillvirgo intactaand likely to remain so indefinitely …’”
“Did you tell anyone else what you told me in Hyde Park?” Lydia asked and Frances shook her head, badly shaken, before continuing to read, her voice dropping to a whisper.
“‘Given that the Duke of Westall did not marry for love, and that he appears not to be exercising his marital rights, can we assume that he had other, perhaps more pecuniary, reasons for entering this unusual arrangement…?’”
“Who has written it, and why?” Lydia questioned. “I told no one what you told me, I swear. No one was with us in Hyde Park but Henry and I’m sure he didn’t hear a word. He was too wrapped up in his newspaper and that blonde-haired woman with the large bosom.”
“Someone who hates me!” Frances almost sobbed. “They’ve even published our names, when they usually only imply such things. Oh, it’s horrible! How humiliating… Half of the ton must have read this and be laughing at me. No wonder everyone was whispering when we came in. I thought it was only because we were newly married.”
“Would the Duke of Westall have confided in anyone? Or might any of the servants at Westall Park have overheard you talking together and sold such a story to the scandal writers?”
“No! At least, I don’t think so… Who would do something so vicious?”
A succession of wild possibilities rushed through Frances’ mind, each as improbable as the next: the Duke of Redford, Mrs. Betsworth, Nettie, Lydia’s brother Henry… None of them seemed likely to possess both information and motive. It made no sense at all.
“Oh Lydia, how can I go back out there now? Everyone will be mocking me and making fun of Ambrose. He doesn’t read these things and won’t even realize.”
