Page 79 of The MacGregor's Lady
“Revenge,” Mary Fran said, smiling hugely. “We could take in Enid’s crinolines until she can neither breathe nor stand up with her Mr. Trucklebed.”
“Trundle,” Augusta said. “We could lace her patent remedies with a laxative. We could see her compromised, though she’d hardly object to it. She is upset that Hannah is ruined because it reflects poorly on her, not because Hannah will suffer for it.”
“Hannah might be married for it,” Julia pointed out. “I’m not sure, given that Asher is the prospective groom, suffering is the appropriate term.”
Augusta drew her fingernail along an embroidered seam of the tablecloth. The figure was a depiction of pretty bluish flowers—lilacs and columbines amid greenery against a soft gold background. “Neither one of them wants to be married, and if they do marry, it shouldn’t be like this.”
Like this—a reference to the things Enid had noted. An absence of bouquets, a lack of calling cards, much less cards with a particular corner bent, indicating the visitor waited,inperson, for a few minutes with the ladies of the household.
Polite Society was nothing if not articulate in its silences.
Genie buttered a slice of toast but didn’t eat it. “Con said he, Gil, and Ian asked Asher what he was going to do about Hannah’s situation. Asher didn’t answer them directly.”
“Perhaps he’ll give them an answer on their morning ride,” Julia observed.
A knock on the door interrupted the conversation.
“Enter,” Mary Fran called out.
Two footmen strode in, each obscured by an enormous bouquet. All four ladies sat up.
“Sweet basil is for good wishes,” Julia remarked, breaking off a leaf from the nearer bouquet and bringing it to her nose. “Water lily is for purity of heart. Nobody puts water lilies in bouquets. I forget what arborvitae is for.”
“Unchanging friendship,” Genie said. “The roses are from Spathfoy, white for purity. But this other bouquet, it isn’t gaudy, exactly…”
They regarded the larger arrangement, a pretty assortment of both blooms and greens.
“Jasmine is for grace and elegance,” Mary Fran murmured. “I know that one only because Matthew has sent it to me, the daft man.”
Augusta rose and plucked a single sturdy evergreen stem from the very center of the bouquet. “Juniper is for protection. Who in the world?” She rummaged around among the blossoms, looking for a card. An elegant little note sat near a creamy magnolia blossom. “Magnolia for dignity.”
“There’s a carriage pulling up. Crested,” Julia reported. “I can’t quite… God in heaven. We’re to have a caller after all.”
They went to the window en masse. A liveried footman sprang from the back of an enormous town coach and strode briskly toward the town house door.
“That crest is familiar,” Augusta said. “Somebody make sure Hannah is properly turned out before she comes down. These flowers need to go into the front hallway, and have the footmen fill the card bowl with last week’s cards. Alert the kitchen we’ll need the best service, and send word to the mews when the men come in that Mary Fran will skelp their bums if they set so much asonemuddy boot on the back steps while we’re entertaining. And do not breathe a word of our caller to Miss Enid. The woman needs her rest.”
The ladies scurried off in several directions, so that within the five minutes necessary to assure the footman they were at home and happy to receive guests, word had gone upstairs, downstairs, and everywhere in between.
While the kitchen worked furiously to assemble a tea tray fit for royalty and Hannah’s maid put the finishing touches on her coiffure, the Moreland ducal coach disgorged no less than a viscountess, two countesses, two marchionesses, and… one dignified, smiling duchess on the arm of her graciously congenial—if leonine—duke.
Sixteen
“He tries so not to glower, but His Grace is the type to fret over his womenfolk.” Her Grace, Anna, Duchess of Moreland, did not sound concerned that every half minute or so the Duke of Moreland took note of his duchess’s progress around the garden with Hannah.
His Grace was similarly vigilant regarding his various sisters as they minced about with Con, Gil, Ian, and Malcolm, while the smaller of the two marchionesses, the youngest of the lot, sat among the roses with the MacGregor wives and His Grace.
“He seems a very hale gentleman,” Hannah said, hoping it wasn’t too plebeian to describe a duke as hale.
The duchess approved, if her smile was any indication. “The Windhams are a hardy lot. The former duke and duchess lived well into their eighties and were seldom under the weather. Moreland shows every sign of taking after his father in this regard.”
Her Grace blew her husband a kiss. He bowed slightly in her direction, and Hannah wanted to blush for them both.
“We’re quite shameless. The younger generation mutters about former times being more permissive and the elderly needing humoring. We despair of them, of course, being so strict and proper all the time.” Her Grace paused and bent to sniff at a white rose. “Did you enjoy the bouquet?”
This, Hannah suspected, was how a duchess got down to business. “I haven’t seen it yet. I was still above stairs when the flowers arrived.”
With gloved fingers, the duchess snapped off the rose and passed it to Hannah. “Were you still recovering from last night? We’re unfashionable, to be calling at such an hour, but I saw you, you know.”
