These Vicious Masks: A Swoon Novel(54)
“Miss Wyndham, I’m sorry I was quite occupied with Mr. Kent tonight. It’s a shame we did not have much opportunity to speak,” she said, to my silent disagreement. “How did you enjoy the play?”
Without Mr. Kent or his stepmother within earshot, I didn’t quite know what she was planning. I hardly knew how to speak to her like a normal person. “It was . . . dreadful,” I replied, hesitatingly.
“I agree,” she said. “Hero’s ending always bothers me.”
“Yes, marrying someone as boring as Claudio does seem terrible,” I joked, unsure of her intentions.
“Oh, I think she was rather lucky.”
“You would be happy to have Claudio?”
“No, Hero was lucky for an entirely different reason. She was the target of a false rumor, saved only because the villains confessed to their lies. Everything turned out perfectly, just because the play happens to be a comedy with a happy ending. Unlike Othello. Poor Desdemona—she was proclaimed innocent far too late, the damage already done. Can you imagine being the target of such a rumor in society now?”
“I can’t,” I replied coldly, the blood rushing through my veins as the realization of what she was suggesting overtook me. I rubbed my gloved hands together as we stepped outside into the wet London night.
“One would never recover from it. Fortunately for us, it’s perhaps harder to lie and make up false stories, at least in London, yes? There always happens to be someone noting where you are at all times, even if you don’t see them.”
I tried my best to look less rigid. The question of what exactly Miss Verinder knew beat in my head, and I could barely contain the annoyed scream. Did this girl exist just to make provoking remarks? With everything on my mind, I had no patience for these elaborate Shakespearean metaphors she’d undoubtedly spent all day devising.
“Yes,” I said. “But it’s a shame those people don’t have anything better to do with their time.”
At that moment, Mr. and Mrs. Verinder voiced their good-byes and called for their frowning daughter. With a swift curtsy, she wished me good-bye—her voice a veritable coo. “It was a pleasure seeing you again, Miss Wyndham.”
“Pleasure can hardly describe it.”
She flashed me a knowing grin, amusement and devilry glinting in her hard green eyes. “I will see you at tomorrow’s dinner party, then.” She disappeared into the waiting carriage. I hoped it had a loose wheel.
Our ride home was a silent one. Laura closed her eyes and shut herself off from the world. Without anyone to listen to her, Lady Kent lethargically peered out the window and recited her dinner-party guest list for tomorrow, which was, coincidentally, also my list of people I hoped would get horrifically sick. When we returned home, Laura sulked up the stairs, and I had to chase her to provide another apology.
“Laura, I’m sorry,” I called after her. She continued to her room, ignoring me.
“I thought you were doing well on your own,” I said cheeringly.
With a huff, she spun around at the top of the stairs to face me. “Well, I wasn’t!”
And this was somehow my fault? “I just don’t understand why you even needed my help.”
She blinked back tears and crossed her arms so tight, it looked like she would somehow suffocate herself. “I asked you, Evelyn, and you agreed. Then you deserted me,” she said in a tremulous voice.
“It was an urgent matter. I had to speak to Mr. Braddock about Rose!”
Instead of listening to a word I was saying, Laura plowed on, sacrificing coherency for tears and half sobs. “And . . . and then—Mr. Edwards warned me—he said he heard all sorts of awful things about . . . you and what you’ve been doing . . .”
What could he possibly have heard? “Wonderful, Mr. Edwards has opinions about other topics he knows nothing about. I’m sorry I ruined your chances with such an eligible man. I’ll send a letter to Rose asking her to wait until you get married. Or do you somehow have a more selfish goal in mind?”
“I’ve—been trying . . . to help you!” she said, desperately swiping the tears away to no avail.
“No, you just want a fun adventure.”
Laura’s voice screeched with desperation and a full-on tantrum. “Miss Verinder says you’re simply having fun with all the men in London!”
I could only gape, stung by her accusations. Stonily I climbed the stairs. She stared at me with the hugest eyes anyone had ever had as I stopped on the stair below and spoke ever so gently.
“Is that really what you think of me? I am sorry, truly sorry, that I upset you tonight. But my sister is gone, God knows where. And if you’re going to believe Miss Verinder over me, I am not sure what else we can do.”
With that, I left a pale Laura on the landing, marched to my room, closed the door, and fell heavily against it. If only I could slam it. Tentative footsteps shuffled outside. A very small knock came, but I was already undressing for bed. It had been too long a day to try and soothe Laura on top of it. The voices of stubbornness and exhaustion proved far more convincing than anything nagging me to her door.
THE NEXT MORNING arrived, but Mr. Braddock never did.
Exhausted as I had been, sleep proved to be impossible. From the moment the sun rose, I waited in the downstairs parlor, reviewing Miss Grey’s dream entries and trying to make more sense of the vague, fragmentary clues and images. None of the entries on Dr. Beck, Claude, or Mr. Hale gave a hint of where to go, and there was only one mention of Lord Ridgewood on Dr. Beck’s page. It read, “Difficult to contact, Whitechapel, spotted dog.” That was all. No description, no history, nothing more.