“Pappa!” Eliza cried at the same time Caroline said, “Your Honor!”
“Men don’t know everything there is to know,” Poppy snorted.
“You all know what I mean,” the judge said, waving a hand at them before picking up his knitting again. “Hollis is perfectly capable of conjecture and speculation and, given a set of facts, will solve a puzzle faster than anyone. You’re very clever, Hollis, my darling. But you should notgatherthe facts. That is dangerous and absurd, and I’ll not have it.”
“I don’t like to hear those rumors,” Eliza said. “Let’s please talk about something else.” She bounced Cecelia on her knee. “Let’s talk about what everyone is wearing to the ball.” She spoke in a singsong voice, and the baby laughed.
“Anotherball?” Hollis’s father complained.
“A costume ball!” Caroline said with delight. She was on the floor again, only this time on her back, so that Pris was compelled to jump on her chest and settle in, sinking his claws into Caroline and purring loudly. “Everyone is to dress as a figure from history, which means, of course, I’m going as Marie Antoinette. Eliza, I’ve made you a Grecian gown. And, Hollis, you’ll be delighted when you see the medieval queen’s dress for you.”
“Is that all you do in Bibury? Make gowns and grow saplings?” Hollis asked. Poppy stood and picked up Cecelia, then walked to the window.
“Why not?” Caroline asked as she absently stroked the cat. “The queen loves a costume ball, you know.”
“Oh, my,” Poppy said. “The crowd has gotten much bigger, hasn’t it?”
Hollis got up to have a look. So did Eliza. Cecelia put her palm against the panes of glass and babbled.
The crowd on the green was half again as large as it had been when Hollis had arrived.
“I wouldn’t be the least surprised if Mrs. Spragg has made herself a town crier and let everyone know I am here with Cecelia. We should go,” Eliza said. “Bas will not like that such a crowd has gathered.” She turned. “Poppy, will you help me gather all our things?”
Poppy handed the baby to Hollis. Cecelia gurgled and reached for Hollis’s curls.
“She loves you, Hollis,” Caroline said. “What a pity you can’t be closer to them.”
“What a pity, indeed,” Hollis murmured. She leaned forward to smell Cecelia’s head, the sweetest scent in the world. It was curious to her that for so long now, since Percy’s death, moments like this had been cloaked in grief. But today, Hollis was hardly thinking of him at all. She was thinking that she would like a cherub of her own. Maybe two or three of them.
She pressed her nose to the baby’s neck, breathed deeply, and decided, very determinedly, not to let the sour thought that she would likely never have them ruin this moment.
CHAPTER SIX
The first week of the Alucia-Wesloria peace summit has been, by all accounts, rather subdued. One observer reports that the talks have begun with general agreement on the dependence of the respective economies. A most tedious subject to most, but a necessary one to all, as it is recognized that peace cannot be achieved if the parties do not establish a sense of fair play on both sides.
Ladies, as cold air settles over London, remember that Allman’s plaster is considered the best to be applied to chests and backs as a cure for the cold. It will relieve the lungs as well as improve the function of kidneys in the most subtle of ways.
—Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and Domesticity for Ladies
LORDDROMIOSUMMONEDMarek Brendan to his rooms early on the afternoon of the grand costume ball. He was in a state of half-dress, his legs bare and his shirttail flapping about and scarcely covering his bits. Marek felt a bit as if he was at the man’s toilette with him, a very odd place to be.
But his lordship was not the most organized of persons, and he often called Marek to him while he was in the middle of something else. Once, he’d summoned him when he’d been naturally detained in the water closet and proceeded to ask questions about a trade imbalance with Norway.
This afternoon, Dromio was waving off his valet. The man fluttered like a moth around the minister as he desperately attempted to hand him trousers. Dromio avoided him and went instead to a table and, spotting what he was looking for, leaned across to fetch it.
Marek turned his head from the sight of the man’s arse and pretended to examine a painting of someone’s long-dead ancestor. But presently, the watery sound Marek knew to be someone speaking reached him and he turned back. The minister was waving a thick envelope in Marek’s direction. “Your invitation to the ball,” he said. “You’ll need this to enter.”
“Pardon?” The wordsinvitation to the balldid not seem in any way applicable to him. He was not, generally speaking, invited to balls. He’d been to a grand total of two in his entire thirty-four years, even though his aunt had insisted on dance lessons in the event that he was, one day, invited to them all.
Marek was not invited to them, and didn’t want to start now. He stared with some dismay at the envelope Dromio held out and didn’t move to take it until Dromio began to wave it resolutely at him and he had no choice. He approached gingerly, his hand reaching well ahead of the rest of him.
“It’s a costume ball, Mr. Brendan. That means you must attend incostume.”
“Pardon?”
“A costume! Surely even a recluse such as yourself has some notion of what a costume is. As I said to Ratonkin here—” he gestured loosely to his valet “—we Weslorians view these things as something for children. Will we next be expected to dress as goblins and dance around a bonfire?”
Marek didn’t see how a costume ball would lead to a pagan ritual, but Dromio was not exactly the most sensible man he’d ever known.
