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“I want one,” Daisy cried.
“Young ladies—” Mrs. Mobeetie began.
“We were invited to masquerades,” Daisy interrupted. “We were invited to everything, Mrs. Mogbetty. Now we must stay in the house, barring small excursions to the bookstore and the like. But next Season we shall go to masquerades, and we might as well be prepared.”
Livie was experimenting with tucking the silk veil behind one ear and then letting it flutter free again. “I love this hat.”
“I can’t be responsible for young ones such as yourselves sneaking off to Vauxhall,” Mrs. Mogbetty said. She frowned at Daisy. “I’ve seen your ilk before, and you are not one to stay quietly in the house.”
“That is true,” Daisy conceded.
“I don’t want to go to Vauxhall, whatever that is,” Livie said. “I shall wear this hat in the park. When fine ladies see me, they turn away so sharply that I feel as if their heads will twist off their necks. But wearing this hat, I could ride in the park, and no one would know who I am! Please sell me this hat, Mrs. Mogbetty.”
“Sell me one as well,” Daisy pleaded. “I couldn’t allow Livie to go for a ride alone in Hyde Park. I’ll buy the bonnet I’m wearing as well, of course.”
Mrs. Mogbetty sighed; she knew when she was beaten. “I have misgivings,” she grumbled, but she opened a cabinet, pulled out a circlet topped with silk violets, and handed it to Daisy.
“This is exquisite,” Daisy breathed. “I promise, word of honor, that we won’t go to Vauxhall.”
“My cousin always keeps her promises,” Livie chimed in. “She can be astonishingly naughty—you know that’s the truth, Daisy—but my aunt is always frustrated when it turns out that she hadn’t explicitly forbidden whatever Daisy had done.”
“No Vauxhall,” Daisy promised. “Well, not this year. Not until we’re older.”
“What is Vauxhall?” Livie asked.
“I don’t know,” Daisy said laughing. “But I’m certain I shall enjoy it … someday.”
Mrs. Mogbetty groaned.
CHAPTER NINE
REBELLION IS REACTION TO AN UNFAIR WORLD
By March, they were used to their new reality. Livie and Daisy spent their time exploring London, trailing a groom behind them as they visited the British Museum in Montagu House, the exhibits at the British Library, the Old Bailey sessions house, the Adelphi terrace, and St. Paul’s.
“I never wanted to be so educated,” Daisy groaned one evening, throwing herself into a chair in Livie’s bedchamber. They were alone; her mother had left for Cheshire to visit the Duke of Lennox that morning and wasn’t expected to return for at least three weeks. “You like learning things, Livie, but I don’t! That whale, for example, was a waste of two ha’pennies.”
Livie looked up from the account she was giving her father of the great sea beast’s skeleton. “Not true! Just imagine such a giant animal floating about the ocean. I expect Father has seen them in the deep.”
She finished her sentence, added her love, and sanded the letter.
Daisy was pawing through a basket she’d brought in from the drawing room.
Livie glanced over as she placed her father’s morning letter into the trunk beside her desk, where it joined all the daily missives he’d sent since she learned to read at the age of five. “What do you have?” she asked.
“The invitations we received for this Season,” Daisy said. “They used to be piled in the hallway, but Mother moved them to a basket.” She scanned each missive before tossing it to the rug.
Livie thought of pointing out that she was making a mess, but she held her tongue. Her cousin found near-confinement far harder than she did. Daisy worried about her uncle, but not with the same nagging fear that Livie felt every waking hour.
No matter how often her father assured her that someone had borrowed his identity and met with scoundrels in France, Livie couldn’t help fearing that the truth wouldn’t come out or couldn’t be adequately proved.
“I found it!” Daisy triumphantly held up an invitation. “It’s an invitation to a masquerade ball, given by Lord and Lady Rothingale.” She flashed Livie a grin. “This invitation admits two, and you don’t have to identify yourself, because it’s a masquerade!”
“Rothingale is a degenerate,” Livie objected. “He eloped with his wife last Season, Daisy. Your mother wouldn’t have allowed us to go, even without this business about my father hanging over our heads. In fact, I’m surprised she received an invitation.”
“We could go for one hour,” her cousin cried. “Just an hour, Livie, that’s all. If I don’t have a chance to see people and hear music and dance one measure, I will die.”
Livie rolled her eyes.
