Cordelia scrunched her dejected face. “He hasn’t actually told me he loves me. And he did request a long engagement.”
“Oh.”
“Hmm.”
Tapping her lip, Aideen mulled. “Have you spoken to your piano tutor?”
“Yes. I sent a message asking him to meet me at Hatchards. I took my maid of course, and…and…”
“And?”
“He told me it wasn’t him who’d sent the blackmail note but admitted my poems had been…sold!”
Aideen gasped. “Lawks, they must have been good then. Will they be serialised?”
“No!” Cordelia wailed. “He sold them to Viscountess Gibbon. Her daughter, the fainting one, was always the favourite choice of Oakdean’s grandmother, and I’m certain she means to betroth the delicate flower to him. The beastly blackmailing…so-and-so.”
There were many words Aideen might have chosen but Cordelia was ever polite.
Stroking her friend’s hand in consolation, she set her mind to work. “But surely this is all a smidgeon melodramatic.”
“Aideen,” her friend wailed again, “have you not observed the underhand deeds at these balls?”
“Well, not when there are lobster patties to be had and if they happen to have scotch eggs too, I’m oblivio–”
“According to the gossip columns and naming no names, a certain Miss R laid a piece of string across the library at Mr O’s last month, causing Lord G to trip and fall straight into her bosom. They are now engaged. And Lady U trapped Sir E in the retiring room with a pink muff.”
“Are they engaged?” Aideen asked, thoroughly confused.
Cordelia frowned. “No. He’s gone to the Continent. Better Napoleon than Lady U’s sisters, I suppose. But that’s not the point.” She stared darkly. “It’s a predator’s lair in the ballroom.”
Breath stuttered in Aideen’s throat as she imagined the black-clad Duke of Rakecombe prowling some glittering event, snarling at any debutante that got in his way, swiping with clawed paw at any badgering marriage-minded mothers…or was that marriage-minded badgers.
Either way, there was always a bigger predator.
“I will have a ponder, Cordelia. Anyone who faints at thighs cannot be allowed to get away with such wickedness.”
Staring at the mantelpiece in consideration, Aideen smiled. Amid the stack of correspondence, if memory served, sat an invite to Lady Gibbon’s ball on Wednesday.
Coincidence or divine intervention?
Finally, some intrigue to enliven the Season.
∞∞∞
The Duke of Rakecombe’s stomach gurgled and he held a palm to the un-ducal noise. How dare it.
His mother had obtained a new French chef, a certain Monsieur Pascale Dupont, for the Rakecombe residence, but something was…off. Always the sauce was over-peppered or the meat too rare – his lamb had practically bleated its displeasure from the plate last night.
“Apologies, Rakecombe, I’ll be with you in a jiffy.”
He surveyed the man that kept him waiting.
Busy scribbling away, Lord Rainham was one of the principal spy coordinators here at Whitehall. Honoured with the rank of viscount last year for saving a bosky duke from poisoning – not himself, obviously, but Cousin Humphrey twice removed – Rainham was a somewhat strange chap. Nevertheless, this steadfast leader commanded Rakecombe’s profound respect.
His gaze wandered; the office appeared as well-ordered as ever, but even here something else was…off.
Over the past months, he’d perceived a difference in the newly ennobled Lord Rainham. He’d put it down to Napoleon, the cause of all ills, but there felt more to it, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
