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“Mrs. Benson, it is a pleasure to see you again!” cried Mrs. Blakeney, as enthusiastic as she had been when Adele had known her as Miss Gorman. “How lucky we are to have you with us for so long, isn’t that right, Mrs. Whitley?”

“I am the one who should consider herself lucky, Mrs. Blakeney,” said Margot when Adele did not immediately answer. “My cousin has done a great deal to ensure I have been thoroughly entertained while visiting Pasadena.”

“Oh, but we have not even had Christmas yet! And then there is the Tournament of Roses on New Year’s Day and the parade. Will you stay until then?” asked Mrs. Blakeney.

“My husband must return to his work in Parliament before the new year.”

“Tell me, what does your husband think of our president, Mrs. Benson?” asked Mrs. Gill, who had joined them. “Given his involvement in politics, I’m most curious.”

“Well, I should never like to speak for my husband…” Margot began, before beginning to do precisely that with, Adele thought, a rather thoughtful answer to Mrs. Gill’s question.

As the ladies began to converse, Mrs. Blakeney leaned over and said, “Mrs. Whitley, I’d like to show you the new painting I have recently acquired. Mrs. Barnes is not here, and you are the only other lady I know who has such a good eye for these things.”

Adele still found Mrs. Blakeney as silly and flighty as she had when she had been unmarried, but in that moment she could not have been more delighted to be led across the room to a pair of windows between which a large painting of a Dutch landscape hung.

“What a lovely piece,” she said. And it was, but in truth it reminded her of any number of paintings she had seen before, right down to the trio of docile white cows grouped near a babbling brook.

Mrs. Blakeney turned to her, concern clear in her expression. “Mrs. Whitley, are you quite yourself?”

Adele snapped to attention. If Mrs. Blakeney had noticed something was wrong, she was slipping. “I’m perfectly well, thank you.”

Her hostess’s brows drew in. “I only ask because there is a rumor that your husband may have landed himself in some difficulty two evenings ago.”

Horror filled Adele. Who had seen Guy? One of the servants who worked for Mrs. Parker who lived across the road from the Gables? Had the person who had shoved Guy, inebriated, onto the front drive for all the world to see told someone? The driver of that cab?

“Oh, you mustn’t be angry,” said Mrs. Blakeney, laying a hand on Adele’s arm. “You know the way these things are—and I for one never listen to gossip, except that… well, I don’t suppose there’s a delicate way to say this—”

“Perhaps if you simply said it,” Adele bit out.

“I heard Mr. Whitley was found in a”—Mrs. Blakeney dropped her voice—“a gambling den outside the city limits. And that before that he had been to a saloon.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You can imagine how shocked I was when I heard!” Mrs. Blakeney looked away as though it was simply all too much for her. “If Mr. Blakeney placed me in such a situation, I cannot imagine what I would do.”

“You are too quick with your concern, Mrs. Blakeney,” she said through gritted teeth. “None of what you heard is true.”

“That is strange, because the person I spoke to had it on very good authority—”

“I wonder, Mrs. Blakeney, how you can be so reassured of this rumor. Surely you would not have accused my husband of drinking or gambling unless you felt certain of the source of that information. I cannot imagine you being so confident in the whereabouts of anyone’s husband but your own, but that would mean…” Adele leaned in closer. “Your husband would have had to witness such behavior.”

The other woman’s lips pursed, and Adele felt the immediate satisfaction of having beaten back her opponent.

“Madam?”

Both Adele and Mrs. Blakeney turned to see the Blakeneys’ housekeeper hovering nearby.

“Yes, Pritchard?”

“Madam, there is a messenger here for Mrs. Whitley,” said the housekeeper.

“A messenger for me?” Adele asked in surprise.

Mrs. Pritchard nodded. “One of your maids.”

A new, different sort of fear flamed in Adele. There was no reason a maid should come to fetch her unless something was terribly wrong. “Where is she?”

“Waiting in the entryway,” said the housekeeper.