“A gentleman,” Cecily repeated faintly.
“They haven’t named you,” Beatrice assured her. “And they haven’t named him either. Not yet.”
Cecily let out a breath she had not realized she had been holding. “Then perhaps…”
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Breathed. Steadied herself. Outside, Brighton continued its cheerful indifference—a carriage, voices, the distant suggestion of the sea.
She was still sitting there, dry-eyed and emptied out, when the sound of the front door reached them from below. Brisk, purposeful footsteps in the entrance hall. A voice she would have recognized anywhere, carrying the particular tone it reserved for situations that required immediate management.
Both sisters went very still.
“That’s Mama,” Cecily whispered.
Beatrice stood. “I’ll go down first.”
“Don’t.” Cecily pushed back the counterpane and reached for her wrapper. “She’ll only come up here if you do. Better to face it in the drawing room. At least there, we can call for tea and pretend we’re civilised.”
The Dowager Countess of Moreland had not come alone. She had brought her lady’s maid, her travelling case, and threeLondon newspapers folded with the relevant pages facing outward, which told Cecily everything she needed to know about the nature of the visit before her mother had even removed her gloves.
She swept into the drawing room, where Cecily and Beatrice were sitting—Beatrice upright, Cecily with her hands folded and her expression braced—and deposited the newspapers on the table between them with the controlled energy of a woman who had spent a long ride composing herself and was holding that composure together by sheer force of will.
“Well?” she prompted.
“Mama,” Beatrice said carefully. “Sit down. Let me call for tea.”
“I have had tea.” Lady Moreland sat anyway, straight-backed. “You have been very busy,” she remarked, removing her gloves. “Both of you.”
“Mama–” Beatrice began.
“I came as soon as I could.” Lady Moreland’s eyes moved immediately to Cecily’s face with an assessment so swift and thorough that Cecily felt she had been cataloged. “You’ve been crying.”
“Observant of you.”
“Cecily.”
“I’m sorry.” Cecily meant it. “I’m sorry, Mama. I’m—yes, I’ve been crying.”
Her mother looked at her for a moment longer, and something moved very briefly through her expression. Not softness, exactly, but the shape of where softness lived when it was not currently available. Then she reached for the first newspaper, opened it to the marked page, and set it on the table between them.
“You have read this,” she said.
“I’ve heard enough of it.”
Cecily looked at it. The headline was not subtle. Neither was the illustration beside it—a rough sketch, mercifully imprecise, of a woman kneeling beside a prone figure on a shore, the caption beneath readingA Most Irregular Morning Encounter.
The column described the scene in the languid, suggestive prose that the Society pages reserved for moments exactly like this one, careful to imply everything while confirming nothing, which was somehow worse than outright accusation.
She read it once, then set it down.
“Then you know that London is already discussing a compromising scene with an unnamed lady on the Brighton shore.” Her mother tapped the page.
“They haven’t used my full name,” she pointed out.
“Not in that one.” Lady Moreland reached for the second paper. “In this one, they have.”
Cecily closed her eyes for a moment. Then she opened them.
“What you may not know is that the gentleman involved is not merely a gentleman.” Lady Moreland set the paper down carefully.
