Page 12

They stared at her. It wasn’t a lie, but she was conscious of hiding the full nature of the encounter. In light of that concealment, the wager looked foolish.

“You were in that old nankeen skeleton suit of Henry’s, weren’t you?” Roz asked, a hand pressed to her chest. “He saw you?”

“Was he clothed?” Miranda asked.

“You two are missing the point,” Viola said. “The key is that he’s a man of regular habits. It’s good to know the enemy’s movements.”

“The enemy’s movements!” Roz scoffed. “Are you planning to level a cannon at him?”

Viola shrugged. “I’m sure Graymont paid no attention to Cordelia at all. In London he must have a high flyer in his keeping.” She bit into her toast.

“Viola, what do you know of high flyers?” Cordelia asked. Perhaps it had been a mistake to send Viola to Lady Hester Britt’s Academy. “And what makes you think Lord Graymont is keeping a mistress?”

“He played cards with Papa,” Viola said.

There was a little moment of silence. Their father’s pursuit of an opera dancer had added to the grief of losing their mother. It was as if they’d lost her twice when Papa threw off his mourning for her.

“We mustn’t speculate uncharitably about Lord Graymont, and we must keep out of his way. With any luck, he’ll find country life dull and be gone in a fortnight. What we should be thinking of is our ball.”

“How can we? We have no house, no furnishings, no money,” Roz said.

“I agree. It looks bleak, but the auction will clear us of our most pressing obligations, and quarter day rents are coming. The thing is not to despair, but to prepare. We need to be patient, merely for … a fortnight.”

The three stared at her as if she were demented and in need of restraints. Her egg, thoroughly cold now, looked up at her like an accusing yellow eye. She steadied herself. It was only day one of her wager.

“We are the first family of Clifton-on-Sea. Our neighbors have come to our Midsummer ball forever. We can’t let them down. What I propose is that Roz, you make a guest list, and Miranda, you devise a menu for a small supper. Viola and I will go to the village for a little”—she looked at Viola—“scouting, to see which merchants might be inclined to help us.”

“Oh, we’ll be like Wellington’s exploring gentlemen,” Viola said, her eyes sparkling. “We can gather intelligence from anyone who has had dealings with Lord Graymont or with his Mr. Winter.”

Cordelia cut into her cold egg. Strength. She needed all the strength she could muster to contain Viola.

*

Clifton-on-Sea had no pretensions as a resort. There was no promenade or assembly rooms. It boasted merely the necessary elements of English village life—a church, a green, an inn and stables, a post office, and the usual shops. These establishments lined a broad, gently curving high street that ran north and south with several branches. At its northern end, the street crossed a stream, the Addlethorp, that could hardly be called a river, and met the road through the New Forest to Southampton and on to Winchester, Basingstoke, and London. Just south of the Addlethorp bridge was the lane that led to Delamere and the cliffs above the beach. At the southern end of the high street, St. Nicholas Church stood on a little knoll overlooking the Common, with the graveyard and vicarage behind it. On the sixteenth of each month, the anniversary of her mother’s death, Cordelia stopped at her mother’s grave. For a few moments, she drew sustenance from her mother’s steady, generous spirit.

As Henry needed the family’s horses to visit tenants and tend to the home farm, the sisters walked, Viola skipping and jumping over puddles remaining from the storm while keeping up a steady stream of remarks about how the village looked just as she remembered it. Cordelia was glad Viola had taken no true injury from her fall in the tree.

At the back of the church, the sexton kept a cabinet for his tools, the key on a peg. Cordelia retrieved a rake, a trowel, and a pair of gloves. Her mother’s headstone was the tallest in the little graveyard, a fine slate carved with angels and inscribed with a flowing, not insincere message about Catherine Leigh Staveley: beloved wife and mother, endowed with all the graces of a true lady. A stone border framed her plot, and green stalks of foxgloves poked up among the fallen remains of lilies of the valley. Cordelia raked and tidied. It was a task for the sexton, but Cordelia preferred to do it herself. She had promised her mother that she would look out for her siblings, and today she wanted some sign that she was keeping that promise. Mama would approve of their ball, but maybe not a wager with a man who gamed. Viola wandered and commented on neighboring graves of other departed Leigh ancestors.

“Mama’s plot looks nice, Cordelia,” Viola offered.

“It will do. Shall we go?”

In the village they posted Cordelia’s letters, stopped at the circulating library to pick up a novel for Viola and admire the latest fossils for sale, and chatted up Mr. Powlett at his general store, asking to see his paper supplies, and letting him know that they might be in need of some things for their annual ball.

Mr. Powlett’s eyes widened, and Viola shot Cordelia a triumphant glance. “So, you plan to hold the ball, do you?” he asked.

“We do,” Cordelia said firmly.

“Mrs. P and I did not know what to think with that man Winter ordering up quantities of goods from our store for his master.”

“I hope we may still rely on you, Mr. Powlett,” Cordelia said. Graymont’s great buying power had clearly won Mr. Powlett’s favor.

“Of course, Miss Staveley.”

“Thank you. Come, Viola.”

In the street, Viola skipped a few paces and twirled around. “You got him thinking,” she said.