Page 6 of Miss Dashing
“Oh, I just had to, Hecate. I had to, had to.”
Eglantine did everything in triplicate. Well, almost everything. Only two children so far, both of them boys. Given Charles’s nature, another child was bound to come along soon.
“You are in good spirits.” Which often boded ill for Hecate. “Shall we sit?”
“Yes, we shall. A cup of tea will settle my nerves if anything can. I am so excited.”
Eglantine was soyoung. Barely twenty-five, the mother of two, and married to an earl’s heir. That Cousin Charles would one day be a peer was proof the Fates occasionally took to tippling.
Hecate led her guest to the tufted sofa and situated herself in the wing chair across from her. The tea service arrived, sandwiches doubtless to follow, and Hecate resigned herself to having her ear talked off.
“Charlie has had the best idea,” Eglantine said, stirring her tea vigorously and tapping her spoon on the saucer. “My Charlie is so clever. Nobody gives him enough credit.”
Rather the opposite.Everybodyextended credit to Charles Brompton on the basis of his expectations, despite the fact that Great-Uncle Nunn was in excellent health.
“Have some cakes,” Hecate said, holding out the plate. “They go down so well with good China black.”
“No sandwiches?” Eglantine made a face and put three cakes on her plate. “Cakes will have to do, but with supper so far off, you’d think the kitchen…”
A footman paused at the door, nodded, and deposited a tray heaped with sandwiches on the low table. “Anything else, miss?”
“No, thank you, Timmens, and my compliments to Cook for her prompt work.”
Timmens bowed without so much as glancing at Eglantine and withdrew.
Eglantine added a pair of sandwiches to her haul of cakes. “You will die, Hecate, simply expire of envy when you hear Charlie’s idea. I am so proud of him.”
Eglantine, bless her loyal heart, was a good wife. She’d been all of seventeen and in anticipation of a scandalous event when Charles had offered for her. Her settlements had gone a long way toward rewarding Charles’s supposed gallantry. Their firstborn child was no relation to Charles, a complication Charles had been willing to overlook before he’d become Great-Uncle Nunn’s heir.
Let it be said, Charles was not mean. He’d made his bed, feathered with the last wealth Eglantine’s family had had to offer, and he’d lain in that bed more or less contently ever since—albeit with myriad opera dancers, widows, and light-skirts.
“What wonderful idea has Charles come up with now?” Charles’s wonderful ideas invariably involved spending money.
A racing stud—as if those were not thick on the ground, and every one of them bleeding coin.
A charitable orphanage—always profitable, if well run, in Charles’s vast and deep experience. When Hecate pointed out that charities should notbeprofitable, Charles had grumbled about details.
A finishing school for illegitimate young ladies with wealthy, titled fathers, and—of course!—Hecate could be its founding patroness.
Even Eglantine had winced at that notion.
“Charlie says we must have a house party,” Eglantine pronounced around a mouthful of cake, “and Mama-in-Law supports the notion. Technically, she’d be the hostess, and nominally, Great-Uncle Nunn would be the host. London is so unbearable in the summer, and Nunnsuch will be Wharton’s home one day. He and Winston should be spending time there.”
Wharton was Eglantine’s eldest, Winston his toddling younger brother. They were delightful children, thus far, having their parents’ cheerful dispositions and an innocent sense of fun. Hecate gave it about five years before public school and the insidious Brompton talent for mischief ruined them both.
And now the boys were to have their first, nursery-eye view of a house party?
Hecate sipped her tea and mentally counted backward from twenty in Latin. The Brompton family had two main branches. Papa was a cousin at a remove from Great-Uncle Nunn, while Charles had the great good fortune to sprout from the titled side of the tree. Papa resented his titled relations, resented Hecate, and would probably resent a pot of gold if it had the temerity to land on his foot.
The titled Bromptons, by contrast, were a frivolous lot, frequently pockets to let and wits gone begging, and their numbers were legion. They were always scheming, always looking for a way to turn deviousness into coin, usually with disastrous results. Great-Uncle Nunn, the Earl of Nunn, cast a dim and disapproving eye on his dodgy relations and mostly ignored them.
He’d likely show up for the final day or two of this bacchanal, harrumph down the room with the highest-ranking female guest, and declare the whole thing absurd. Of all her Brompton relatives, Great-Uncle was the one whom Hecate respected.
“It’s rather late to be planning a house party, Eglantine. Most of Society has already decamped for the shires.”
“But grouse season is still weeks and weeks away—weeks, I tell you—and Nunnsuch is a lovely property. If we invite a combination of friends and family, with a few neighbors thrown in, we’ll have plenty of guests, but here is the best part…”
She popped another tea cake into her mouth and chewed vigorously while Hecate steeled herself for disaster. What fool had decreed that ladies did not use profanity?
