The Lady Knows Best, page 6
But someone else had already retrieved the key, and she found the door to the back room ajar.
The room was just as disorganized as it had been before, but someone had polished the window, and a complete run of the Magazine for Misses now lined the sill.
Constantia Cooper, the artist behind the monthly satirical cartoons, “What Miss C. Saw”—known among readers as the “Unfashionable Plates”—was seated at one end of the oval table, sketching. She wore a dress of drab green muslin and, as usual, all that had been done to tame her frizz of curls was insufficient to the task.
Once, Daphne had puzzled over Constantia’s role at the magazine, but now she understood that Miss C.’s drawings were intended not to highlight the day’s fashions but to skewer the fashionable.
Only after Constantia had completed the exaggerated outline of a figure did she lift her head. Pushing her spectacles up her nose, she favored the dog with an exasperated look and then shifted her gaze to Daphne.
“Are all the Burkes incapable of leaving the house without some sort of animal companion?”
Daphne had never confessed the matter of her sister’s cat’s misbehavior and its role in bringing her to the magazine.
“This is Zwolf.” She patted the dog’s broad head as she made the introduction. Given the dog’s size, the movement hardly required her to extend her arm.
Constantia tapped the end of her pencil against her paper. “You have a dog named Twelve?”
“His mother was called Elf, you see,” Daphne explained. “You wouldn’t believe it to look at him now, but he was the runt of her last litter. Bell and I were studying German at the time and since zwölf follows elf . . .” Constantia’s expression remained resignedly disapproving. “Well, I thought it was clever,” Daphne finished weakly.
Lips pursed, Constantia glanced between them before returning her attention to her drawing. “Lady Stalbridge won’t be here for half an hour, at least.”
“Why are you here so early?”
“I came to work,” she explained, her voice and her posture stiff. “Undisturbed.”
“Oh, right. Yes. Well, pretend Zwolf and I aren’t here. I’ll just—I’ll read,” Daphne said, picking up a book that was lying nearby and motioning for the dog to lie down beneath the table.
She opened to the title page: The Justification of a Sinner; Being the Maine Argument of the Epistle to the Galatians.
In keeping with the rules of Latin, from which the dusty volume might have been translated a hundred and fifty years or so earlier, Justification had been spelled with an I. Thus it appeared at first glance as if the titular sinner was to be lustified. Daphne resolutely bit back a snicker. The book did not promise much in the way of entertainment, beyond that bit of unfortunate typography, but it might at least serve as a distraction.
Even deft feats of textual exegesis by “a Reverend and Learned Divine” were unable to engage her interest, however—or keep her thoughts from wandering back to last night.
If only she had never accepted Lord Deveraux’s invitation to dance . . .
Though he had been quite the handsomest man she had ever danced with.
But what difference did his looks make? Why, it would be traitorous for her to find him attractive. He had knowledge that could put an end to her time here, even undercut the success of the magazine itself. He was a scoundrel who cared about nothing but winning that ridiculous bet.
“For pity’s sake!” Constantia snapped her pencil flat on the table and sucked in a breath that threatened to pull all the air from the room. “What is in that book?”
“It’s, uh . . .” Daphne glanced down at the open page, the one over which her eyes had been sliding for the past few minutes without taking in a single word. “It’s a treatise on St. Paul’s epistle to the Galatians. Why?”
“Because your sighs are ruffling my papers. I had no idea you felt so strongly about theology.”
Daphne was spared from having to concoct an excuse for her behavior by the arrival of Lady Stalbridge. “Good news, ladies,” the countess sang as she tugged off her gloves. “Every last copy of the latest issue of the Magazine for Misses has already been sold.”
Constantia leaped to her feet and shook Lady Stalbridge’s hand; Daphne too rose and expressed her excitement at the news. And while Lady Stalbridge removed her bonnet and explained her hopes for a larger printing next month, Daphne and Constantia even shared a cool nod of mutual satisfaction.
Only after Lady Stalbridge had seated herself and withdrawn her notes for the meeting from a neat leather satchel did Daphne venture the question that had been weighing on her for hours.
“Did you know that Aggrieved in Grosvenor Square was Arabella Grey?”
Lady Stalbridge squared a stack of papers and gave a discreet cough. “Perhaps I . . . suspected. When the letter writer mentioned a wager, I happened to recall something Oliver had told me. . . .”
Oliver was Lord Manwaring, Lady Stalbridge’s stepson; only those admitted to this room knew that he was also the mind behind the famous, but fictitious, Mrs. Goode.
“Once you had composed your exceptional reply, I realized it contained a message many of our readers needed to hear. So I said nothing more of my suspicions. Though in truth,” she added sheepishly, “I did not think Miss Grey would act on your advice in quite such spectacular fashion.”
“You did not think she would be permitted to act on it, you mean,” corrected Constantia. “Miss Grey has a despotic and improvident father, just the sort of man who would be eager to claim Lord Deveraux for a son-in-law.”
“Given the circumstances, then,” Daphne ventured, “don’t you think it’s possible Miss Grey will be persuaded to marry Lord Deveraux after all?”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Theodosia Nelson, as she breezed into the room. A West Indian heiress, she penned newsy notes about current events—actually a column about politics, abolition, and the war, full of information generally deemed inappropriate for the audience of the magazine. Her secret ambition was to write for The Times.
“Haven’t you heard the latest?” When Theodosia plucked off her bonnet, dark brown curls sprang free, perfectly framing her brown face and eyes. “Arabella Grey has eloped! Disappeared in the night with the son of a Welsh coal merchant. They’re said to be desperately in love.”
“Oh, won’t her papa be fit to be tied,” said Lady Stalbridge with unexpected glee.
Theodosia shrugged. “I daresay he’ll bring himself to forgive his daughter. Her new husband is said to be terribly rich.”
Their chatter washed over Daphne in waves. She was delighted for Miss Grey, of course. Impressed, too, by her feigned devastation the night before, at the ball—a ruse, she supposed, to divert her family from her plans. Why, her mother had probably insisted that she needed to retire early and rest without interruption, giving her the perfect opportunity to escape.
But now who was Daphne to find to satisfy Lord Deveraux’s list of demands?
“Forgive me for interrupting,” said Theodosia, laying her bonnet and gloves aside. “What were you discussing when I came in?”
Lady Stalbridge picked up a sheet of figures, the uppermost item in her stack of papers. “From what I can see, we have Lord Deveraux’s broken engagement to thank for our success this month. As soon as rumors about the identity of the man in Aggrieved in Grosvenor Square’s letter began to circulate, so did the Magazine for Misses. And I have an idea for how we can thank him,” she finished, lowering the paper to look straight at Daphne.
“Th-th . . .” Daphne’s mouth was dry, too dry to form the word without pausing to swallow. “Thank him?”
“Although, I doubt he’ll appreciate the sort of gratitude I have in mind,” Lady Stalbridge said with a humorless smile. “You see, since I read your answer to Miss Grey, I’ve been considering the need to speak to our readers in more pointed terms about the dangers posed by certain gentlemen of the ton, both those who wear their villainy like a badge of honor, and those who hide every appearance of it.”
Lord Deveraux was the former sort, of course. But when Daphne looked back on his behavior of the evening before, she wondered whether he might be hiding something of himself, nonetheless.
“Is not the Magazine for Misses our united attempt to speak to our peers on such matters?” demanded Constantia, her chin tucked back toward her breastbone, like one affronted.
“Of course it is, Miss Cooper,” Lady Stalbridge said in a mollifying tone. “But subtlety may be overlooked. Satire may be misread. Miss Busy B., however, has a knack for plain speaking, and clearly readers do listen. I had in mind an essay, or a series of essays, on rakes—”
Daphne’s heart began to race. On one hand, she would like nothing better than another opportunity to shame Lord Deveraux. On the other, more exposure of his bad behavior would hardly improve her chances of finding him a suitable wife—which was to say, her chances of saving herself and the magazine.
“I want young women to be able to recognize them,” continued Lady Stalbridge, “and thus avoid being ruined.”
Beneath the table, Daphne twisted her fingers into a knot. She could have done without hearing that phrase again.
“Rakes and ruination?” Miss Julia Addison peered around the tall bookshelf that screened the room from the doorway. “We must be talking about Lord Deveraux again. Do tell us, Miss Burke, what was it like to dance with him?”
Lady Stalbridge’s dark, delicate brows rose in a perfect arc. Constantia, who had been gesturing with her pencil for emphasis, lost her grip and flung it across the room. Zwolf obligingly lumbered out from beneath the table to fetch it.
“And who is this darling boy?” Julia crooned, stepping forward. Zwolf tilted his head at the sound of her voice.
Daphne took advantage of his momentary distraction to retrieve the slobbery pencil from the dog’s jaws and return it to a nonplussed Constantia. “I didn’t realize you were at the Clearwaters’ ball, Miss Addison.”
“I wasn’t,” Julia said, scratching the dog between the ears and favoring him with a scrunch-faced smile before taking her seat. “But Mrs. Hayes was—she and Lady Clearwater are old friends, you know.”
Mrs. Mildred Hayes was the liberal-minded aunt of Julia’s sister-in-law, Lady Sterling, and a devout lover of the theater, the more awful the farce, the better. Following the recent marriages of both Julia’s brother and mother, Mrs. Hayes had invited Julia to move to Clapham as a sort of companion. Together, they attended all the plays and performances Julia reviewed in her column under the name Miss on Scene.
“She regaled me with the news over breakfast. Said that when you and Lord Deveraux danced together, the ballroom was . . . abuzz.” That last word, a clear reference to Miss Busy B.’s column, was punctuated with a mischievous giggle.
Constantia and Theodosia were all astonishment. Lady Stalbridge looked thoughtful. “Tell me, my dear, did Lord Deveraux say—or do—anything of note in your presence last night? Anything particularly scandalous?”
Daphne gnawed at her lip. “Um, maybe?” She glanced around the table. “My goodness, shouldn’t we wait for Lady Clarissa?”
“She won’t be joining us this morning. She is preparing for her debut performance at the Estleys’ musicale this evening,” Lady Stalbridge said with an indulgent smile at Daphne’s obvious attempt to change the subject. “She credits your marvelous advice for her ability to persuade her papa to allow it, even though she is not strictly speaking ‘out’ in society.”
Daphne knew then that the countess had no intention of letting Miss Busy B. squirm her way out of the planned essay on rakes.
“She is to play a duet with her mother,” Lady Stalbridge went on, “and they have been practicing three hours every morning. Lady Clarissa feared that to cry off on the day of the performance itself would raise suspicions and so she had to miss our meeting. Now, you were saying about Lord Deveraux . . .”
“I heard he tried to take you off somewhere—alone—after you danced,” said Julia.
“Excellent,” Lady Stalbridge purred.
“Excellent?” Constantia echoed, incredulous. “How so? Why, he’s obviously only looking for some way to win his bet.”
Slightly wounded by that harsh truth, Daphne nevertheless looked to Lady Stalbridge for an explanation.
“If Miss Burke is to speak with her usual authority on this matter, it will unfortunately require some first-hand experience with rakes. If Lord Deveraux has shown interest, I believe you should encourage it. That way, you will soon know his tricks well enough to be able to teach our readers to avoid them.”
“It seems to me any plan for Miss Burke to associate further with the man runs the risk of damaging her own reputation,” observed level-headed Theodosia.
“If there is any scandal—which I doubt,” said Lady Stalbridge, “for our Miss Burke is far too clever to be ensnared—her family will help her to weather it. They strike me as a fiercely loyal clan.”
“Anyway, those sorts of scandals never last long,” Julia added, sounding vaguely disappointed. She was still scratching Zwolf behind the ears. A rope of saliva hung from the dog’s jowls, and a puddle of drool had begun to form beneath the table, a sure sign of his contentment. “By next Season, everyone will have moved on to something else.”
Daphne managed a nod. They weren’t wrong; scandal swept through the ton like wildfire, and her family had proved itself strong enough to withstand those flames more than once. Still, spending more time in Lord Deveraux’s company was not without risk.
More time . . .
“But this Season will be nearly over by the time the next issue is available,” she pointed out. “I’m quite sure he expects to be married by then.”
“We could publish the essay more quickly as a separate pamphlet, or a broadside.” Two pink spots burned on Constantia’s cheeks. “Illustrated, perhaps?”
“What a clever notion,” said Lady Stalbridge, jotting notes on the sheet of figures. “We can reach more readers that way, too, and use the opportunity to promote our magazine. Now then, are we agreed?” She looked around the table at each of the contributors, marking their assent to the project on a tally. “Very well. Miss Burke, I recommend you continue your research tonight at the Estleys.”
“Do you really think it likely Lord Deveraux will attend this evening, ma’am?”
Gentlemen found any number of excuses to avoid musicale evenings—ironic, given that young ladies usually acquired musical accomplishments because it was supposed to help them attract a husband. But, since most young ladies played insipidly and sang worse, Daphne couldn’t exactly blame the men for suddenly remembering they had another engagement or even coming down with an otherwise inexplicable bout of dyspepsia.
“I think it more than likely, Miss Burke,” was Lady Stalbridge’s reply. “Unless and until he finds someone foolish enough to marry him, you’ll find him everywhere respectable young ladies are gathered.”
“As opposed to his general habit,” proclaimed Constantia, “of associating only with the less-than-respectable ones.”
General merriment greeted that witty remark.
Daphne leaped to her feet. “It’s late. My, uh, my sister will be looking for me. Come, Zwolf.” Still mesmerized by Miss Addison’s attention, the dog ignored Daphne’s command. She had to grab him by the collar to persuade him to accompany her from the room.
“Oh, Zwolf,” she moaned softly when they were on the pavement in front of the shop. “Now I’m caught between an essay on rakes and a hard place. What am I going to do?”
The dog looked up at her with sorrowful eyes.
You’re meant to be the clever one.
Well, yes. She was fairly clever, last night notwithstanding.
But was she clever enough to figure her way out of this?
CHAPTER 7
That evening, as Daphne was climbing the steps of the Estleys’ Grosvenor Square townhome, the solution to her dilemma came to her.
Not, to be sure, a perfect solution. It would almost certainly create new problems.
But it would answer both Lord Deveraux’s and Lady Stalbridge’s demands, and it would give Daphne ample opportunity to research a rake’s ways.
A breath shuddered from her.
If she weren’t careful, it could be more than ample opportunity.
From the doorway, Cami glanced over her shoulder. Concern wrinkled across her forehead at Daphne’s hesitation. “Is everything all right?”
Daphne dragged up a smile and looped her arm through Bell’s. “Of course.”
They were greeted by the Marquess of Estley, a handsome gentleman of about forty, with pale blue eyes, dark blond hair that Daphne refused to compare to Lord Deveraux’s, and a thin scar along one cheek. He had come into the title some two years earlier, on the death of his father.
He bowed. “Lady Ashborough, Miss Burke, Miss Bellis. My wife hopes you will excuse her for not being here to welcome you.”
“Of course,” said Cami. “Her mind must be on her and her daughter’s performance. We are honored to have an opportunity to hear them play.”
Upstairs, the drawing room had been rearranged to accommodate rows of spindly chairs, all facing a Broadwood pianoforte. Daphne and her sisters found three seats near the front. In the row ahead sat Lady Stalbridge, accompanied by her stepson Lord Manwaring. She turned to speak briefly to Cami, offering little more than a polite nod to Daphne; after all, they were not meant to know one another well.
But when no one else was looking, young Lord Manwaring—the person behind the shadowy figurehead, Mrs. Goode—sent her a saucy wink. Lady Stalbridge must have told him of her plan.
What, Daphne wondered, would either of them make of her plan?
Well, she would know soon enough, for at that moment, the hum of voices, its pitch already reflective of an audience made up mostly of women, rose sharply. The cause? Lord Deveraux’s athletic figure framed by the doorway.
