A Lady of Persuasion (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #3)(97)

Lady Violet cleared her throat and placed a hand to her temple. “I don’t suppose you have a spot of tea to offer? I imagine wine is out of the question. I feel as though I’ve wandered into a Quaker meeting.”

The ladies tittered with laughter.

Bel tamped down the irritation rising in her breast. Charity. She was living for charity now, and Lady Violet needed a great deal of it. “To be sure, I can offer you tea.” She turned to address the room. “Or coffee, or chocolate. Ladies, shall we go in to breakfast?”

As the ladies filed down the corridor, someone clutched at Bel’s elbow. She wheeled about.

“Sophia! Oh, I’m so glad you’ve arrived.” She wrapped her sister in a warm embrace. “I was beginning to worry you wouldn’t come. Augusta’s in Surrey, of course, and I’m on my own this morning.”

“Certainly I came. Do you think I’d leave you to face these dragons alone?” Sophia’s blue eyes twinkled. “But before I forget,” she whispered, “I have a gift for you.” She placed a small, flat package in Bel’s hands, wrapped in brown paper and knotted with twine. “It’s a book,” she explained in a low voice. “But don’t open it now.”

“Not the book. The one Lucy kept hinting about?”

“Yes. Well, not that exact volume. I had to send a manservant to locate a fresh copy.” The corner of her mouth pulled in a grimace. “What an errand that was. Anyway, you really ought to have it. These things are meant to be passed on.”

With a regretful look, Bel pushed the parcel back at her. “I don’t know how to tell you this…

but I’ve already seen it. Your copy, I mean.”

Sophia clapped a hand over her burst of laughter. “You didn’t.”

“It was by accident, I assure you. I was looking for a sleeping draught and—” Bel nudged her sister down the corridor, where they could speak without drawing notice. “I scarcely looked at the pictures, I promise. Once I realized … what I realized, I quickly put it away. But truly, I read enough to know I’m not interested in reading the rest. You can take it back.”

“You didn’t read all of it?”

“Heavens, no.” Bel pressed the package toward Sophia again, but her sister would not take it.

“Then you absolutely must have this one.”

Bel shook her head. “I don’t want it. Come now, The Memoirs of a Wanton Dairymaid? It’s ridiculous.”

“Precisely,” Sophia said. “It’s a ridiculous book, filled with wicked fantasies and silly notions and improbable romance. But you ought to read the rest, just the same.”

“Why?”

Sophia smiled. “Because it has a happy ending.”

Too disheartened to argue further, Bel accepted the book and laid it on a side table. With a weak smile, she said, “This morning will end unhappily indeed if I keep my guests waiting any longer.”

Crumpets dusted with powdered sugar, iced cakes, jam tarts, and macaroons… all these and more weighed down the sideboard in the breakfast room. Bel had been planning this menu for weeks. She held her breath as Mrs. Framingham plucked a glacéed apricot from the apex of an artfully arranged pyramid. When the tower of fruit refused to topple, Bel heaved a sigh of relief.

“I must say,” Sophia murmured, biting into a crumpet, “as social gatherings go, I’ve never seen its like. A ladies’ breakfast party with requisite mourning attire, rife with potential for scandal and innuendo? Remarkable.”

“Are they really here for the potential of scandal and innuendo?”

“They’re not here for chimney sweeping, I’ll tell you that much.”

Bel wilted in her chair. With Toby away and in mourning, she thought surely Mr. Hollyhurst’s last caricature would have faded from public memory. If they had wished to see a lust-crazed Bel slavering over her rakish husband, they ought to have known it would not happen today. It would not happen, ever again.

“But they are here,” Sophia continued, “and you’ll see, good will come of it. Sometimes a little scandal is just what you need.”

“Yes, Toby once told me the same.”

Toby had told her many things, so very few of them true.

“Lady Aldridge,” Mrs. Breckinridge called, her mouth full of cake. “You must tell me how your cook gets this icing so creamy, so perfectly white. Is it a special recipe?”

“Oh, it’s sweetened with love,” Lady Violet said smugly. “That’s the secret ingredient. This is a honeymoon house, you know.”

“No,” Bel blurted out. She bit her lip. “I mean, it isn’t the recipe. It’s the superior quality of the sugar. We use only the most refined sugar, imported by my brothers’ shipping company. It’s farmed on Tortola, on a freedmen’s cooperative.” She perked with inspiration. “If you like, I can give you a list of the merchants who stock it.”

“Please do,” Mrs. Breckinridge mumbled, taking another bite of cake. “This is divine.”

Immediately, several other ladies expressed an interest in receiving the same list.

“You see,” Sophia murmured, giving Bel a smile. “I told you good would come of it. And we haven’t even had the demonstration yet.”