Page 23 of The Wallflower Manifesto
Millie grimaced. “Speaking of which, I have not mentioned your previous dealings with Freddy. I thought it would unnecessarily complicate things.”
“I wouldn’t have expected you to try to explain that to her,” Ember said with a shrug and a toss of her tight cherry-brown ringlets and a deceptively airy tone. “Even I have trouble explaining it. Tell me, why did the good lady send you ahead? Isn’t it your job to accompany her in all things?”
“It’s my job to manage her diary and ensure this Season goes the way she wishes.” Millie handed two coins to the flower deliverers as they passed her on their way out, and sighed. “Besides, Ibelieve she is meeting some of her friends at their flat on Bond Street ahead of time and they will travel here together.”
“Do her friends know she calls them ‘the Spinsters’?” Ember asked with a gleam of mischief in her eye. She leaned back against the bar, surveying the effect of the flowers and food on her establishment.
“They call themselves that, actually.” Millie had wondered the same thing, and Lady Bentley, suspecting the unasked questions from her reaction to the group moniker, had graciously explained. “Apparently, they were friends as girls and had all agreed they would become wealthy spinsters rather than wed. Obviously, my patroness did not manage to hold up her end of that agreement, but they do not shun her for it, all the same.”
“Really? Did any of them manage it?”
“I suppose we’ll have to ask them when they get here,” Millie replied with a thoughtful tilt of her head as she approached a vase that was sitting slightly askew over a dark wooden mantel near the central card table. “Shouldn’t be much longer.”
“People are not always honest when they gamble, you know,” Ember told her, watching the flowers as Millie spun and arranged them to her satisfaction. “But they reveal little pieces of themselves you might not ever see otherwise. I rarely play anymore myself, but I learn much simply by watching. It can get very dramatic.”
“I’m sure it can,” Millie replied, dropping her hands at her sides and looking around for anything else that might need adjusting. “Are you going to abstain from playing tonight?”
“No, I think I will join you,” Ember replied, a feline little smile seeming to sharpen her teeth. “Sometimes, one wishes to participate in the drama.”
The ladiesindeed arrived in a clutch, the five of them already deep in the midst of raucous conversation as they burst through the doors of Ember’s establishment.
“My,” said a silver-haired woman with half-moon glasses. “So, this is hell, is it? Very nice flora.”
“Ahell, my dear,” replied a plump, sweet-faced woman to her side. “A gambling hell. And not a copper one either, I daresay.”
“Certainly not!” Ember had cut in, sweeping into the foyer to greet her guests. “Welcome to Brigid’s Forge, ladies. I am the proprietress, Ember Donnelly. At your service, of course, if you require anything tonight.”
Coos and adulations were made in response to Ember’s very existence as a woman and the owner of such a business, and the women were all swept inside on the enthusiasm, shedding their shrugs and reticules to a series of shiny brass pegs on the wall as they went.
As introductions were made, Dot arrived, slipping in through the front door without so much as a creak of the hinges. She appeared next to Millie so suddenly that she visibly startled, which won a smug little smile out of Dot, proving it had been intentional.
As a bit of revenge, Millie grabbed her by the hand and tugged her forward, making a show of her introduction to the Spinsters, whose names were Mrs. Goode, Smith, Wainwright, and Billings.
Privately, Millie thought they sounded like a law firm.
“So you are all called Missus?” Ember observed with amusement. “Except the one of you who went off and got married.”
“To be fair,” Lady Bentley replied with mock haughtiness, “I was always going to be Lady Patricia, whether I wed or not.”
“Oh, is fairness the name of the game tonight?” asked Mrs. Smith, the Spinster with pale silver hair and half-moon spectacles. “I was intending to cheat.”
“We already know that, Zelda,” Lady Bentley replied back flatly, winning a round of laughter from the other women.
“Help yourselves to refreshment,” Ember said, gesturing toward the platters of cold finger foods on the bar, “and I will pour whatever drinks you like and we may start with either cards or dice. I’ve prepared games for both.”
“Did you bring your dice?” Mrs. Wainwright asked Lady Bentley excitedly. “The ivory ones with the gold filling?”
“Alas, no.” Lady Bentley sighed, filling her plate with a careful selection of figs and stilton tarts. “I’m afraid my son inherited those a lot earlier than planned. But I do not need ivory and gold for luck tonight, I think. My stars should be in good order, since I arranged the evening, don’t you think?”
“Are we gambling with real money, then?” asked Mrs. Goode, the soft, benevolent-looking Spinster. “We used to only play with buttons.”
“We used to have no money of our own,” retorted Mrs. Smith. “Now we do, we ought to do the thing properly.”
“Agreed,” put in Lady Bentley. “Which is why I got us port and cigars for a little later in the evening. We shall have a gentleman’s leisure, just as we are not supposed to.”
“Cheers to that!” said Ember with a grin, lining up glasses for the incoming drink requests from behind the bar. “Who wants whiskey?”
Dot was still clutching MIllie’s hand, she realized, her green eyes wide with wonder and perhaps a bit of fear. “What is this?” she whispered to Millie without moving her body or indeed, somehow her lips.
