My Lady's Pleasure (27 page)

F
reddy, meanwhile, was enjoying the company of Miss Niven and Lady Georgiana. He was doing his level best to pry out of them the secret of their costumes for the party the next evening. Had he gotten Miss Niven alone, he might have succeeded, but Georgiana was too much for him.

“What is the point of going to a masked ball if you tell everyone ahead of time what your costume is? It absolutely defeats the purpose,” she told him with spirit.

“I couldn’t agree with you more,” said Freddy. “I would never suggest that you should tell everyone. I only suggest that you tell me.”

“Bah! It would come to the same thing, as your discretion is not to be relied on!”

“Not to be relied on! I say! I can be as silent as the grave when circumstances warrant.” Freddy made a locking gesture over his lips.

“It is that ‘when circumstances warrant’ that makes me uneasy,” Georgiana said.

At this, Freddy turned to Alexandra. “Miss Niven, surely you have more faith in my judgment and discretion than Lady Georgiana.”

“I certainly have some faith in your judgment,” she said with a smile, “but I have more faith in hers, so I am going to follow my friend’s example and keep my secret.”

“Well,” said Freddy, stymied, “I’d like to see a little less sober judgment and a little more freewheeling devil-may-care around here, I must say.”

“Then why don’t you start by telling us what your costume is,” Georgiana said, fluttering her lashes in a parody of innocence.

“Oh, I’ll be one of the many satyrs in attendance,” Freddy said.

At this point they were interrupted by Lady Loughlin. “Freddy, my son. Just the man I’d like to see.”

“I suppose that you, too, are going to pry out of me my costume for tomorrow evening.”

“I don’t care a straw for your costume. I shall know who you are by the way you attach yourself to all the lovely young girls of my acquaintance.” She nodded at Georgiana and Alexandra. “But I regret that I must pull you away from them just for a short while.”

“Ah, we shall miss him,” said Alexandra, who had caught Georgiana’s tone. “But I daresay we shall survive his absence and live to not tell him our costumes again this afternoon.”

“Then I take him away with a clear conscience,” said their hostess, and led her son upstairs.

Freddy knew that his mother would take him away from company only if something serious were afoot. As soon as they were alone in Lady Loughlin’s sitting room he asked, with some trepidation, what was amiss.

“You already know
what’s
amiss, Freddy. But I’d like to find out whether you know
why
it’s amiss.”

Freddy looked puzzled.

“The notes, Freddy, the notes. Surely you know about the notes.”

“Oh, the harlot thing! Yes, of course, I’d heard that Lady G had gotten a couple of censorious missives. But surely it’s not serious.”

“Then you don’t know about Miss Niven’s ‘censorious missive,’ as you call it.”

“What? Miss Niven? What’s happened?” Freddy looked genuinely alarmed, and Lady Loughlin felt sure he couldn’t have been behind the milk, even if he had been the culprit in Lady Georgiana’s case.

She explained to him what had happened, and he was both outraged and incredulous. “That someone would do that! That someone would do that to
her
! What’s she done to deserve it?”

“And did Lady Georgiana deserve it, then?” his mother asked with some acerbity.

Freddy reddened. “Well, of course she didn’t
deserve
it. But having a thing with Barnes in full view and all that. She
is
courting trouble. But Miss Niven! As pure as the driven snow.”

“I certainly don’t know of anything Miss Niven’s done that could have earned her that kind of disapproval,” Lady Loughlin said, “and I am at a loss to explain why she has been treated this way.”

“Well, she’s been awfully plucky about it,” said Freddy, with real admiration. “She didn’t breathe a word of it to me.”

“At any rate, you can see that this series of incidents has taken a turn for the serious, and I’m afraid I must know whether you had anything to do with setting it in motion. A bouquet of poison ivy sounds like it might be your idea of a prank.”

Freddy spluttered with outrage. “Surely you don’t think . . . ! You can’t suspect that I . . . ! Really, Mother.” He looked at her with such bewilderment that she almost felt sorry for having asked him.

“Upon my honor as a gentleman,” he said, collecting himself, “I had nothing whatever to do with any of this. And if I find out who the culprit is, I will personally take him out to the stables and horsewhip him.”

“And if ‘him’ is a ‘her’?”

“Well, I suppose it would be bad form to horsewhip a woman,” said Freddy, contemplating it with a seriousness that almost made his mother laugh. “But I’d think of something.”

“I daresay you would, Freddy, I daresay you would.” Lady Loughlin smiled at her son with affection. “Perhaps, in the meantime, you can think about all you’ve seen and heard since you’ve been home, and tell me whether you have any ideas about the ‘him’ or the ‘her.’ Your father and I are at something of a loss.”

“Oh, it’s ‘him’ and it’s Barnes,” Freddy said with absolute confidence.

“What?”
Lady Loughlin looked startled.

“You have only to look at the brute to know he’s capable of anything.” Freddy waved a hand, as though dismissing every other possibility.

“But surely you don’t know anything against him.” She didn’t know whether he was being serious, but suspected that he wasn’t.

“Do I absolutely
know
anything against him?” Freddy asked rhetorically. “No, I don’t. But the man radiates animal malice. I’m sure he eats raw meat and sleeps in trees.”

Paulette laughed. “Freddy, be serious. We need to get to the bottom of this.”

“If it isn’t Barnes, I’m as much at a loss as you and Father. I haven’t been mingling much, you know,” Freddy said. “It’s bad, being sent down, and it’s cast a bit of a pall over my socializing.”

“I see you’ve found an exception in Miss Niven.” His mother raised her eyebrows.

Freddy grinned. “That I have. And a fine exception she’s been. But as to the matter at hand”—here he shrugged—“I don’t think I’m going to be much help.”

With that, Freddy bade his mother adieu and went off to try to find Miss Niven and Lady Georgiana—Miss Niven in particular. He went downstairs to where the three of them had earlier been breakfasting, but found that the two ladies had moved on.

Although the weather threatened, they had gone outside to take a stroll. Once outside, companionably arm in arm, they confessed to each other what they wouldn’t confess to Freddy.

“I’m going to be Alice,” Georgiana confided to her friend.

“Alice?”

“
Alice in Wonderland
Alice. I loved that book when I was a child. I have the dress and the apron and the stockings and the little shoes with straps. I’ll wear my hair down, just like she does in the book.”

“That’s a wonderful idea! And, with a mask, no one will recognize you.”

“It was actually my second choice,” Georgiana said. “I was going to be a midshipman.”

Alexandra laughed. “I don’t think I know exactly what a midshipman looks like.”

“A midshipman looks exactly like me, only with cotton duck trousers. I wanted to see if I could pass myself off as a man,” Georgiana said. “Only I thought that, if it worked, I wouldn’t be able to dance.”

“I think Alice is much the better choice.” Miss Niven nodded sagely.

“And now you know my secret. Will you tell me yours?” Georgiana squeezed her friend’s arm.

“I am going to be Cleopatra. I have a dress with a square neck that looks a little Egyptian and a little Roman, and if I let my hair down it comes just past my shoulders. I’ll brush it out when it’s wet so it straightens a bit. And I’ll color my eyes, which will show through the mask.”

“That’s a wonderful costume, and I’m sure it will set you off to great advantage.”

Alexandra blushed a little, unwilling to admit that she had thought the same. “I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to use it because my injured ankle made me limp, and you can’t be Cleopatra and limp, but it’s almost gone today and I should be completely two-footed tomorrow.”

As they talked, the skies had darkened, and they now heard a loud rumble of thunder. “I think we should turn back, or we are going to get very, very wet,” said Georgiana.

They turned and headed back to the house, and it looked as though they might reach it ahead of the storm. When they were just a few hundred feet from the door, though, the skies let loose and the rain fell as though from a faucet. In those few hundred feet they got soaked through, and came into the hall a sodden mass of dripping dresses, soaked boots, and ruined hats. But they were laughing as though the world were their own private joke.

They ran for the stairs to go up and change, and almost collided with the Earl of Grantsbury.

“My lord! ” Georgiana said. “I’d heard you were here, but I didn’t see you at dinner last night.”

“I was, I regret to say, busy with my correspondence.”

“It’s not like you to miss dinner!”

“Not like me at all. And I can assure you it won’t happen again as long as I am in this house.”

Georgiana put a gentle hand on the shoulder of Alexandra, who was embarrassed to meet an earl while she was soaked to the skin, and had taken a half step back when they ran into the nobleman. “Lord Grantsbury, allow me to introduce my great friend Miss Niven. Miss Niven, Lord Grantsbury.” The two nodded, and Grantsbury, seeing Alexandra’s discomfort, endeavored to put her at her ease. “I expect that you will give me great credit for the acuity of my perception if I note that I think you two young ladies have been caught in the rain.”

“We have indeed, my lord,” said Alexandra with a shy grin, “and I hope you will excuse me if I run off to get out of these wet things.”

“I will indeed, but only if you promise to return when you are warm and dry.”

“I look forward to it,” said Alexandra, and trotted off up the stairs.

When he was alone with Georgiana, Grantsbury took both her hands in his and kissed her forehead affectionately. “My dear girl, I am glad to see you.”

“And I you,” she replied. “It has been several years, has it not?”

“It has,” said the earl. “Too many, I think.”

“I want to find out all that’s happened in the interim, but first I must follow my friend’s example and change my dress. Shall I come find you when I come back down?”

“Do, my dear, please do. I will take a newspaper into the library and await your return.”

She headed up the stairs, but paused before she had taken a half dozen steps and turned around to come back down. “My lord,” she said, “I have been remiss. The very first thing I should have said to you is that I am so very sorry for the loss of your wife. Although I wrote to you at the time, I never feel as though a letter can do justice to heartfelt feelings—at least, my letters can’t. I know you were devoted to her and it must have been a heavy blow.”

“I was, and it was,” he replied, and his expression softened as he thought of it. “But time works wonders, and her death has not prevented me from enjoying my life.”

“I am glad to know it,” Georgiana said, and went up to her room.

 

She came down an hour later, dry and refreshed, and went straight to the library to find the earl. He was ensconced in a corner, sitting in an oxblood leather club chair, reading his paper as promised. Georgiana stood behind him and scanned the paper over his shoulder. “Is anything of significance happening in the rest of the world?” she asked.

“Nothing I can see,” said Grantsbury. “I think the masquerade at Penfield is the most notable event on the immediate horizon.”

“In that case, I am glad we are here to see history made.”

He folded up his paper with some deliberateness and turned to face her. “I think we have much to talk about. Do you suppose we can find some quiet corner?”

The house was full to bursting with the Loughlins’ guests, and quiet corners in public rooms were hard to come by. There were several people in the library, so the two wandered through the various parlors and drawing rooms to see if they couldn’t find a spot.

As the weather was still inhospitable—the rain had eased, but it was still damp and windy—almost all the guests were indoors, and their quiet corner was not to be found. “There’s no help for it,” said Grantsbury. “Would you consider it too improper to come up to my sitting room?”

Georgiana wasn’t one to be deterred by that breed of impropriety. “I wouldn’t, my lord.” She took his arm and they went upstairs.

The earl’s valet was in his sitting room, setting things aright. “Bertram,” said Grantsbury, “Lady Georgiana and I have come up here to escape the crowds, and nothing would suit us better than a cup of tea. Could you have someone send one up?”