Page 92 of His Lordship's True Lady
“A hopeful, then. The English must do everything their own way, I suppose. Mrs. Delmar has gone into the village with my sister. They claim they’re visiting the shops, but we have a bakery that makes scones no mortal man or woman should resist. If we’re lucky, Cook will put a few on the tray for us.”
The tray Delmar hadn’t ordered, but which nonetheless showed up in the very next moment. The offerings were enough to make Hessian’s belly rumble and his spirits rise. Aromatic China black tea brewed to full strength, scones, butter, biscuits, peeled oranges, and that particularly Scottish confection, tablet.
Hessian made himself eat, because he was famished, and because Delmar, for all his geniality, was not to be underestimated.
Then too, the scones were luscious.
“What do you know of Walter Leggett?” Delmar asked as Hessian finished his third cup of tea.
“Not enough. He socializes selectively, and I suspect our paths would never have crossed but for two things. First, he and my father were friends and I sought to respect that connection when I took up residence in London earlier this year. Second, my brother is something of a commercial genius, and Leggett seeks to take advantage of Worth’s expertise. What’s interesting about Leggett otherwise is how little we’ve learned of him.”
“He’s canny,” Delmar said, “or he was when I knew him. I learned a lot from him. My great-uncle left me a tidy sum, but said that working for a man like Leggett would teach me how to turn one coin into three. Leggett doesn’t gossip, gamble, or chase skirts. Doesn’t entertain lavishly, doesn’t call attention to himself in any way.”
“So he was secretive even before he decided to substitute one niece for another?”
Delmar dusted his hands over the tea tray, peered into his empty cup, set it back on the tray, then folded his serviette just so.
Hessian munched a scone and held his peace.
“I’ve suspected that’s what Leggett was about,” Delmar said. “I don’t bother with the London papers. What good would they do me when Leggett all but hides? We mind our own business, and Leggett has been content to do likewise. Now there’s an English earl on our doorstep, looking like a death’s head on a mop stick, and I can only conclude—”
The door opened, and a pretty redhead filled the frame. Hessian couldn’t see much resemblance to Lily. This woman was average height, where Lily was petite. Both women had red hair, though this lady’s was lighter than Lily’s.
Hessian desperately hoped he was not in the company of Lily’s sister, because whatever else was true of the lady, she was in no condition to travel the distance to London. By Hessian’s admittedly inexpert estimation, the poor woman was about fourteen months gone with child.
* * *
“As regular as the summer mail coach,” Roberta said, taking the scissors to the very edge of her cutwork. “Did I not say so? Nursery maids and governesses are creatures of habit and routine, and thus Amy Marguerite is marched out to the park rain or shine at precisely the same time three days each week. The poor dear must feel like a convict.”
Penelope’s nose remained buried in her book. “Not rain or shine, ma’am. Since this dreadful rain began, I’ve seen no sign of the child.”
For three days, the skies had visited upon London the dreariest mizzling damp. During those three days, Roberta had plotted and planned and even gone so far as to buy a used doll in one of the charity shops.
Roberta was practicing a new cutwork pattern on an old letter from Dorie Humplewit. She opened the paper and found she’d cut too few diamonds into the center of each panel of her hexagon.
“Have you befriended Amy Marguerite yet?” Roberta asked. “Will she recognize you?”
Penelope lay a length of embroidered silk between the pages of her book. “I’ve told you, the child is well guarded. She often has another little girl with her, a nursery maid, a footman, her aunt, the physically Sir Worth, Miss Ferguson, and the London public attending her every visit to the park. If I snatch her bodily, I am a kidnapper, and even for you, Mrs. Braithwaite, I will not take that risk.”
Independence was such a disagreeable quality in a servant. Roberta took up another old letter, cut it into a circle, and folded it into sixths.
“Let me be very plainspoken, Penelope. If you do not contrive to coax the child from the park—I would never condone kidnapping—then you will soon find yourself again enjoying the company of your aged parents and nineteen brothers. Amy Marguerite belongs with me, and if you must tempt her to pay a call on her aunt with candy, kittens, or promises of a puppy, then do so.”
Penelope rose and picked up her book. “I’d best locate some sweets, then. This rain cannot go on forever.”
Roberta snipped away. “Belinda was partial to dolls. There’s one in the spare room. Perhaps you could embroider a new dress for it.”
Anything to pry the infernal books from Penelope’s hands. Anything to get Amy Marguerite where Grampion would have to take Roberta’s situation seriously.
“I can find some scraps to make into a doll’s dress, but ma’am, I beg you to reconsider this scheme. Amy Marguerite dwells in the home of apeer. Her uncle has the ear of the sovereign and has married into another titled family. Her playmates include an earl’s daughter, and that earl is related to half the titles in Mayfair on his father’s side.”
“That is the very point,” Roberta retorted, stabbing the air with her little scissors. “I am but a helpless widow arrayed against the powerful and privileged. If helplessness is all that’s left to me, I’ll use it to shame Grampion into doing his duty.”
The courts wouldn’t see it that way—Grampion had that blasted will on his side—but Grampion would never let his ward become the subject of a lawsuit.
“Did you mean to cut up that letter, ma’am?”
“It’s merely so much old gossip—oh, blast.” The letter was one Roberta’s late husband had penned to her from Ireland, the last trip he’d taken before he’d died. Seeing the snippets of paper all over the table, Roberta was irrationally annoyed with her late husband, her late sister, the Earl of Grampion, and Penelope. “I’ll frame it and start a new fashion for preserving the letters of the departed.”
