James hesitated.
“Yes. Of course I’ll come. I’d be happy to.”
Arthur’s face went brilliant with pleasure, which he quickly tamped. Probably from force of habit.
Guilt jabbed James in the solar plexus. It was just that easy to make his son happy, and it was a joy to do it. How many of those happy expressions had he missed when he was on campaign? Traveling on business for the crown? When parliament was in session?
“Well, I’ll leave you to your work.” Arthur stood at once. He was used to leaving his father to his work, too.
James also stood. “It was good to see you. Truly. Even if you scolded me,” James said.
They shook hands, and James added a back pat that almost but not quite turned into a hug. “I would hope this goes without saying, but please do not disclose my location to anyone, and that includes Cathryn.”
“I wouldn’t dare compromise your safety or your reputation, sir.”
And with that little offhand reference to the dangerous Miss Wylde again, he was gone.
Chapter Fifteen
The serious business of fashioning the little tissue paper roses which, they decided, would be strung on thread and festooned across the backs of chairs, and stuffed into urns that would occupy either end of the refreshments table and along the walls of the room, continued in the sitting room that night. The resident gentlemen of the house—Captain Hardy, Lord Bolt, and Mr. Delacorte—were at present building said refreshments table from lumber left over from the stage. The table would be draped with a tablecloth elevated to elegance by more garlands. The duke was out tonight.
All twenty of the questionable handkerchiefs had been embroidered with TGPOTT, the initials of The Grand Palace on the Thames, and the fishnets—dyed in indigo in vats in the new Triton Group warehouse—had been fetched back home. The ladies had spent the afternoon painstakingly affixing to them their stars of various sizes at different lengths.
And then Captain Hardy and Lord Bolt and Mr. Delacorte had gallantly scaled ladders for the heavy work of suspending and draping them fromthe ceiling while the ladies stood below, supervising, criticizing, critiquing, bickering, pondering, and instructing.
Within two hours, the goodwill of Captain Hardy and Lord Bolt was as full of holes as the fishing nets.
“I think,” Captain Hardy said carefully, when he’d descended, “we need to make hiring footmen a priority.”
Lucien nodded slowly in agreement.
They both received copious amounts of fussing, sympathy, and gratitude from all of the ladies for their efforts. In truth, attempting to hire even one proper footman remained a trial. One prospect had stolen a spoon. Another had swiped his hand across Angelique’s bottom. Good footmen could work nearly anywhere, and Angelique and Delilah offered ordinary wages, excellent food, lots of work, and a location by the docks. The search continued, attended with passionate interest by all the maids employed there.
“Oh,look, everyone,” Delilah breathed, and pointed up.
They all stood beneath their handiwork, heads tipped back, and experienced awe at their ingenuity.
The nets had each taken a slightly different amount of dye, and layered and swagged, the effect was surprisingly beautiful. It was, indeed, like looking up at a cloud-hazed midnight sky. The stars they’d carefully constructed twisted gently,twinkling in the low light of a setting sun pouring in through the windows.
Mariana slowly paced the ballroom to where she’d stood and kissed the duke for the first time. She gazed up to find one of the largest stars dangling over her head. She wondered if it was the Star of Damocles, or the sort she ought to wish on.
Now all they needed was a moon. It seemed, suddenly, the most important part of the stage decorations, the thing that would illuminate her ethereally from behind while she sang onstage. But no one yet had any (good) ideas about how to craft one.
Because of the net raising, or as they preferred to think of it, sky raising, Dot had got hold of the newspaper late today, and was making up for lost time by reading the gossip aloud while all the ladies made folded roses in the sitting room.
“Oh, look. Here’s a little bit in the gossip columns called ‘The Disappearing Duke.’”
“Oh, wouldn’t that be an exciting story, Miss Wylde! Maybe he’s in theattic...” Mrs. Pariseau suggested slyly.
“Because he’s trying to get some privacy to write a book?” Mariana said.
They all giggled.
“Can you imagine? The Disappearing Duke. You could turn it into a song, Miss Wylde.”
Mariana laughed. Then she affected an ominous baritone and a sea-chanty cadence. “Oh, the duke disappeared one dark winter day—”
Dot gasped so suddenly and violently that Mariana clapped a hand over her heart.
