He studied her more closely. “The question is, do you?”
The query deserved honesty. Francesca folded her hands in her lap.
“I very much wish for reform, but perhaps not so publicly.”
“That is sensible.”
“She asked whom I would wish to invite… gentlemen who matter to reform.”
Sir Percival nodded slowly. “What did you reply?”
“That I would consult you.”
“That was very prudent of you and entirely flattering to me.” He reached for a pencil and pulled a sheet towards him. “If Augusta Upton wants to give your reforming inclinations the appearance of fashionable gravity, then there are three sorts of men we need: those who genuinely care for the subject; those who do not mind being seen caring for the subject; and those who dislike the subject but are too important to be omitted.”
Francesca smiled. “Politics sounds like table arrangements.”
“Clever girl. Table arrangement is politics with napkins.”
She leaned forward. “Whom would you place where, Uncle?”
Francesca listened, adding her own thoughts where she could. Harcourt’s name came up naturally and remained. Ashbourne’s did not, which confirmed her initial impression of him. The others he named she had not heard of, but she trusted her uncle’s judgement implicitly.
“I hear Kendall was here,” Sir Percival commented at length, almost idly.
She looked up.
He was watching her over steepled fingers with more attention than his tone implied.
“Indeed, he arrived a few days ago. He said he had some business to attend to,” she answered carefully.
Sir Percival gave the smallest of pauses. “What do you know of his political leanings? I have heard his name mentioned recently in reforming circles.”
The phrasing was so close to her own private fear that she felt almost transparent.
“He has been… more political of late,” she said.
Sir Percival’s gaze narrowed. “Has he, indeed?”
Francesca looked down at the list between them. “He is different. I cannot decide whether London has altered him or merely revealed him.”
Sir Percival did not respond at once. When he did speak, his voice was very mild. “Then use caution, my dear. Anything I can help with, you need only ask.”
She nodded. It was excellent advice, and she was tired of trying to discern everything on her own. No one presented their true self in London, Lady Upton had said. Perhaps that was true.
It was also, she feared, not wholly false.
CHAPTER 15
Arch had attended enough dinners in London to know that very little of consequence was ever decided over the soup, and nearly all manoeuvring was arranged before the guests crossed the threshold.
He had been summoned early and found himself in the drawing room while his mother organized servants, seating arrangements, candles, and the precise placement of chairs as she prepared her campaign. The house itself seemed to understand the occasion. Every surface gleamed; every arrangement suggested taste rather than excess. It was not the sort of grandeur that overwhelmed. It was the sort that implied one had nothing to prove.
“Do not look so sceptical,” Lady Upton said without turning, as she adjusted the angle of a candelabrum by what could not have been more than a fraction of an inch.
“I am not sceptical,” Arch replied. “I am bracing myself.”
“You will behave.”
