Page 49 of Lady Beast's Bridegroom
He was about to say he was not tired when the fiction was interrupted by an enormous yawn. He gave Viv a kiss on the cheek. “You are looking better, too. Barely any rash.”
“My eyes are hardly sore at all,” Viv insisted. “I am sure it wouldn’t hurt me to read just a little.”
“We will see what the doctor says.” He gave her an affectionate pat on the shoulder and returned to his room where his snack was waiting. The yawn came with him, and he took no more than a mouthful before crawling onto his bed and falling into a deep and dreamless sleep.
When he woke in the evening, the doctor had been and proclaimed Rose past the worst of it. The fever was gone. She was coughing less and could take a deep breath without it hurting. Even the rash was less itchy. She was definitely on the mend. She was also asleep, which Miss Pettigrew said was the best thing for her.
Viv had good news, too. She was allowed out of bed, just for an hour at a time to start. And tomorrow, she would be allowed to move back to her bed in the same room as Rose. “I am allowed to read again, too, Peter. The doctor looked at my eyes and says they are not red anymore. But we have to keep this room dark for Rose, so I will go into the schoolroom and read when she is sleeping. And if I am still improving in two days, I can visit Dancer, my pony! Oh, and Moonbeam, too, just until Rose is better.”
Peter stayed with Viv for a while longer, chatting, but when her eyelids began to droop, he excused himself, and went in search of food, since he hadn’t consumed his snack. Downstairs, he had a solitary dinner to eat, and then he settled himself at his desk to write a long and happy letter to Arial, telling her that both girls were recovering, and he would be coming for her soon.
Perhaps a week to ensure that neither of them suffered a relapse, and that they were not infectious?
He folded it, franked it, and was about to write the address on it when he had a sudden thought. He knew what date Arial was removing to Greenmount, but he wasn’t at all sure what the date was today. At that moment, Edwards came in to ask if there was anything he needed. “A coffee, my lord? A tea? A brandy? And may I say, on behalf of the staff, how happy we all are that the little misses are recovering.”
Peter thanked him, and then asked him what the date was. “In the last few days, I have quite lost track.”
It turned out that today was the date of Mrs. Paddimore’s garden party, and tomorrow Arial would be leaving early for Greenmount. He’d better send the letter to Greenmount.
He addressed it and went up to bed, and then had to send for someone to dispose of two rats who had chosen to die in the corner. Tomorrow, he’d ask whether anyone had been laying poison for the vermin. He’d make it clear that poison should never be laid on the schoolroom floor. Preferably not in the house. He’d rather have a couple of ratting terriers up from the kennels to hunt them down through the walls, attics, and cellars.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“This has notbeen as bad as I expected,” Arial said to Clara, as they strolled from the Pall Mall game to the archery. For her garden party, Regina had borrowed the use of the gardens on either side of her townhouse.
The long, narrow garden of her left-hand neighbor had been divided into three zones, with winding paths through flowers and shrubbery connecting them. Nearest to the house, people could play chess using giant pieces set on a board marked into the grass by coloring alternate squares. Next, a Pall Mall game wandered around and through the flower gardens. At the far end, a band played under their own marquee, with room for dancing on the lawn beyond the band.
The garden of the right-hand neighbor had been devoted mostly to archery, since it had a long straight lawn from one end to the other. Nearest to that house, Regina had caused a marquee to be erected, where card tables were set up, partially protected from the sun and the wind.
Refreshments were laid out on tables that spread across her own paved terrace. Next to them, more games had been set up. Bowls on a meticulously flattened and groomed lawn. A space for shuttlecock. Another for a succession of more childish games—blind man’s bluff, tug-of-war, even three-legged races. The most unusual feature was at the foot of her garden, through an archway that divided a tall fence. What had beena normal kitchen garden had been laboriously turned into a maze. Regina’s estate carpenters had come up to London to create a series of wooden walls and trellises. Her gardeners had begun preparing for the party early in the Spring, and now beans, pumpkins, sweet peas, and all kinds of seasonal climbers covered the walls, so that the delighted guests walked between—and even under—verdant leaves and lush blooms as they tried to find their way to the pretty fountain that Regina told everyone was at the center of the maze. “With several nice benches for wanderers to rest on.”
The two women watched a fiercely fought contest between several acquaintances, before abandoning the archery to wander back through the gate in the wall to the next garden. “Perhaps it is all blowing over again,” Clara said, hopefully.
“No one has said anything to me,” Arial noted. And those who were the source of the attacks on her character and reputation had not been invited. Indeed, the one piece of gossip she had been told during the afternoon was that the Weatherall ladies had packed up and retired to the country after yesterday’sTeatime Tattlerarticle.
Peter’s stepmother was continuing to avoid Arial, refusing to meet her eye and moving away quickly when they happened to be in the same vicinity. Arial suspected that it might be guilt. She had been passing on anything Peter said to her about Vivienne’s illness and return to health. The dowager Lady Ransome had yet to acknowledge a single one of the notes, though Pauline Turner had approached Arial one evening to thank her for keeping them informed.
As for Josiah and Marjorie, Arial was going to Greenmount tomorrow, and then on to Three Oaks as soon as she could. She would not have to see her cousin and his wife before the next Season.
It was with a light heart that Arial waved Clara away when her companion-turned-secretary suggested a visit to the ladies’ retiring room. “You go. I shall be fine. I think I shall take another look at the maze. Such a clever idea.”
“Do not venture inside without a safe escort,” Clara reminded her, momentarily reverting to governess. Arial agreed. With its high walls and leafy bowers, the maze was a perfect place for courting couples and those in less-sanctioned relationships to steal a kiss and perhaps a little more. Arial had always assumed that her ugliness kept her safe, but the loathsome Mr. Frankton had disabused her of that notion.
Still, she could look through the archway and admire those parts of the maze she could see. Perhaps Clara would be up to exploring it with her when she returned.
“It is safe, you know,” Regina said, startling Arial for she had not heard her friend approach. “I have stationed footmen at regular intervals to rescue foolish maidens and people with a poor sense of direction.” She gave a husky chuckle. “They have been given strict instructions not to see or interrupt anything that happens when both parties are adults enjoying themselves.”
Arial immediately thought of Peter, and blushed.
From Regina’s amused smile, she had made a good guess at the direction of Arial’s thought, but she was polite enough not to voice it. “I am free for the next fifteen minutes, Arial. If you wish to explore the maze, I would love to be your companion. I will ask Harold over there to let Clara know where you have gone.”
So, Arial stepped through the archway, and for several minutes she and Regina walked slowly and in silence, taking in the beauty around them and filling their senses. They chanced to be alone, though she could hear voices elsewhere in the maze—several children laughing and shrieking, quiet conversation, bursts of laughter. Then she heard her name on the other side of a trellis and came to a halt.
“Lady Ransome has been very much maligned,” somebody said. A woman’s voice. “I have met her, and she is a very pleasant and normal woman.”
“But the mask!” protested another woman.
Regina opened her mouth, but Arial signaled to her to remain quiet.
