Scandalous Desires (Maiden Lane #3)(33)

Amelia sighed. “The orphans come mostly from St. Giles, so the area is inescapable. The building however is not. Unfortunately, we are still waiting for the new home to be completed. We hope in another month or so it will be.”

She sailed ahead to a miserable little door in an equally miserable building.

Isabel sighed and picked up her skirts to carefully follow. This was her first time attending the Ladies’ Syndicate for the Benefit of the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children and she was beginning to think it would be her last. But Amelia had been quite persistent that Isabel join the syndicate. Amelia herself had been, along with Lady Hero Reading, one of the first lady patronesses of the home and she was rather enthusiastic about the endeavor.

Isabel glanced fondly at her friend. They were not close in age—Amelia would die a thousand deaths before she revealed her years, but since her son was in the latter part of his thirties, she couldn’t very well deny that she was well past her fifth decade. Isabel in contrast was but two and thirty.

Despite the disparity in their ages, though, they had much in common. Both ladies had married young and subsequently buried their older husbands. It was true that Isabel suspected from small hints here and there that Amelia’s marriage had not been nearly as happy as her own to her dear Edmund, but Edmund and the late Baron Caire did have one thing in common: they’d both been quite ridiculously rich. And while both titles and estates had been inherited after their deaths—in Edmund’s case by a distant, much younger cousin—both men had left their widows very well off.

Which was why Isabel was about to attend a meeting of the Ladies’ Syndicate for the Benefit of the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children today. There didn’t seem to be much in the way of requirements to join the Ladies’ Syndicate, but wealth was definitely encouraged.

The door to the wretched house was opened abruptly by a stern-looking child of about thirteen. She made a very nice curtsy. “Good morning, my lady.”

Amelia permitted herself a small, approving smile. “Good morning, Mary Whitsun. Isabel, this is Miss Mary Whitsun, the eldest orphan at the home and a great help to both Mr. Makepeace, the manager, and his sister, Mrs. Hollingbrook, the manageress. Mary, this is Lady Beckinhall.”

Isabel smiled. “Mary.”

“I’m very pleased to meet you, my lady,” Mary said carefully as she dipped into another curtsy. She darted a glance at Amelia who gave an encouraging nod.

With this approval, Mary smiled and suddenly her grave little face lit up. She had rich, dark hair and a lovely creamy complexion. Once she’d grown past her adolescent gawkiness, she’d be a beauty if Isabel was any judge.

“Won’t you come in?” Mary said in that same solemn voice.

They entered a hallway so narrow that the two could walk abreast only with difficulty. Isabel winced at the cracked and falling plaster on the walls. She could understand why a new building was needed.

Mary led them up two flights of stairs and into a windowless room.

“This is usually the children’s classroom,” Amelia said, “but Mr. Makepeace has graciously let us use it for our meetings once a week.”

“I see,” Isabel murmured, looking around at the cramped little room. Three other ladies were already in attendance, sitting in rather rickety chairs.

“I know,” Amelia whispered, as if reading her mind, “ ’tisn’t the most comfortable of places, but we—Lady Hero and I—thought that it best to meet where we could also immediately receive reports from Mr. Makepeace and also inspect the children, the premises, et cetera. Ah, Hero.”

Amelia broke off to press cheeks with a tall young woman. “Hero, this is Lady Beckinhall. You remember Lady Hero, do you not, Isabel?”

“Of course. Lady Hero’s cousin, Miss Bathilda Picklewood and I are friends.” Isabel dipped in a curtsy as the other lady did, as well. Lady Hero wore an elegant silver and lavender gown, setting off her gorgeous light red hair. “Congratulations on your recent nuptials, my lady.”

Lady Hero’s pale cheeks pinkened. “Thank you, Lady Beckinhall. May I introduce you to my sister, Lady Phoebe Batten?”

The girl was not much more than a child, a plump little creature with a squint. She was obviously terribly near-sighted, poor thing. Still, she smiled cheerfully as she dipped into a curtsy. “I am pleased to meet you, my lady.”

Isabel nodded to the chit with a smile.

“And this is my dear husband’s sister, Lady Margaret—” Lady Hero began, gesturing gracefully to a pretty, dark-haired woman, when the door opened again.

“Goodness! What a dismal place!” A girlish voice exclaimed.

Isabel turned to see Lady Penelope Chadwicke blow into the room. Lady Penelope hardly ever simply entered a room—she was much too melodramatic for that. With glossy black hair, rosebud lips and pansy-purple eyes, she’d been declared a beauty the moment she’d come out, nearly three years ago. She wore a velvet cloak lined with swan’s down, which she immediately doffed and threw to the much plainer woman following her. Underneath the cloak, her close-fitting jacket was champagne brocade overembroidered in pale rose and gold thread. Her skirts were pulled back to reveal a petticoat embroidered to match the jacket, the entire ensemble probably costing several hundred guineas.

But then Lady Penelope was the daughter of the Earl of Brightmore, one of the richest men in England and she was rumored to have a dowry worth a king’s ransom.