She turned to Dot, who’d been staring, rather awestruck. “And young lady, you are...”
“I’m Dot, Lady Landover,” Dot said. Shyly. She’d read about Lady Landover in the broadsheets.
“And what do you do?”
“I answer the door. And bring the tea.” She did a lot of other things, too, but those were her favorites, and awe kept her from expounding.
Or blinking.
This fixed stare gave the Marchioness pause. “Ah,” she said brightly. “We’ve fifty or sixty people on our staffs who do that for us.”
Dot merely continued staring.
Delilah and Angelique struggled not to exchange a glance. If they were being perfectly honest, they’d been a little desperate when Delacorte had shownup at the door right after they’d first opened for business. They’d liked him then. But now they knew they’d choose him over a marquess for a guest at any time. When they were fortunate to have any sort of choice, that was.
“Where are your darling offspring, this evening, Vaughn?” the marquess wanted to know. “Lillias, St. John, Claire?”
“Oh, St. John is out doing what young men do. I think he went to his club. He’ll be in by eleven o’clock. Claire is reading. Lillias had amal de têteand was tucked up in our comfortable rooms. Quite cozy. But I expect she’ll be down to join us any minute. She’ssolooking forward to the ball.”
Lillias had in fact not emerged from her room for much at all over the past four days, even though she was free to roam, if she chose. She’d declined invitations to ride in The Row or to the museum with her mother and sister. But she’d taken a renewed and rather passionate interest in her watercolors and drawing, and they attributed her sudden re-hibernation to that. This seemed like something to condone. Such an elegant, ladylike endeavor.
“So many engagements have been announced this season and others are anticipated! I wonder when Lillias will make some man the happiest man in the world?” This was the way Lady Landover decided to disguise prying as a compliment.
“Well, she receives about one proposal a week, of course,” Lady Vaughn said.
“But she’s a woman of singular and particular tastes, like her mother, ha ha,” the earl added.
The countess smiled politely. One got the senseshe’d heard that particular joke from her husband a number of times before.
“Well, it’squitethe fashionable thing to claim to be smitten with her. Of course, our dear Henry is just sixteen, or she might have been able to nab him. And there will be a good deal of competition forhim, of course, when he’s of age. As he’ll be a marquess.”
This last bit didn’t need to be explained to anyone in the room.
“We hope to announce an engagement soon,” the earl said. Which wasn’t entirely untrue. There was at least a hope.
Delilah and Angelique exchanged surprised glances. This hadn’t so much as been intimated during their previous evenings in the sitting room.
“Oh,my! Is that so?” Lady Landover touched a hand to her collarbone. “Well, that would be happy news, indeed. I know thetonwaits with barely suppressed excitement to know who will finally win her. And everyone looks forward to hearing what she will wear to the ball.”
Only two people in the room were invited to the ball, but no one cared. They were interested in the commerce aspect of the evening.
“I wonder if you’d like to have a look at the ballroom while you’re here?” Lord Vaughn, doing his promised duty, suggested.
“Oh, yes,” Delilah said. “We’re very proud of it. We’ll be hosting musical guests and other entertainments there and we’d so love to hear what you think of the room.”
“Oh, what a charming idea!” Lady Landover enthused. “We should love to see it.”
Hugh stepped down from the ladder and walked the length of the curtains, seizing soft handfuls of it, shaking them out until they lay in fat, lustrous, smooth pleats. The hems trailed the ground ever so slightly, looking like ladies in ball gowns, and he’d haggled with the butler charged with facilitating the transaction to get him to turn over the heavy tasseled cords that came with them for no additional cost. They would now glide smoothly open from either behind the stage or in front of it via a cord.
He couldn’t wait to see the expressions on Delilah’s and Angelique’s faces when they saw them. He smiled at the thought. Then the smile dimmed. He wondered if he’d be present for any of the entertainments held in this ballroom. Or whether he’d be on his way home soon.
His instincts told him the latter was likely. It ought to have been a more thrilling prospect to contemplate.
He’d been five days away from London; he’d gone from fetching the curtains in Sussex to Surrey to visit the Clay family. When he’d called at their genteel farm, he’d been told by a servant that none of the family was home at present. They were in Bath, apparently. They were expected home within a fortnight. He’d inquired directly about a Miss Woodley, giving her description. He’d only been recently hired, the footman who’d answered the door told him. He regretted that he was unable to answer questions about a Miss Woodley.
Hugh thought that was an interesting way to phrase it.Unableto answer questions.
They’d stared each other down, he and the footman.
