“The only time she’s been here that I know of was at the ball two years ago in honor of your brother George’s marriage and your sixteenth birthday.” Lucy’s eyes widened until Mina feared she might strain an eyeball. “Do you think she’s had a change of heart?”
For a moment, the two of them were silent, and then they said “No” in unison.
When the door suddenly opened without warning, Lady Rumsford stood there, something terrible in her eyes, reddened and glistening with unshed tears.
Lucy fled with Sir Cinnamon II, pleading a headache.
Once they were alone, her mother began to pace about the room and wring her hands. Suddenly, she launched into a litany of Mina’s many sins.
“I cannot go on like this. Ever since the inconvenience of your birth, my life has been unbearable. I wanted to foster you to a family in the village. Really, my dear, your life would have been much better if you’d never known you’d been born into this world of ours.” She stopped pacing and dropped onto a chaise longue, leaned back and flung a hand over her eyes. “But no, Rumsford had to have his way. He wanted to keep you, as if you were some sort of bauble, or entertainment.”
At that, she stood again and produced a page ripped from a London gossip sheet with a dramatic flourish, “This…is because of you.”
Mina stooped to retrieve the sheet from the floor where her mother had tossed it. The caricature page contained a huge rendering of a gaily colored cartoon that seemed like a child’s watercolor until one looked more closely.
A woman resembling Mina’s mother lay atop a circus wagon on her back, skirts flying over her head, whilst a very tall man dressed in footman’s livery faced backward and stood on the driver’s shoulders, eyeing her with obvious lascivious intent.
The figure driving the wagon was undeniably a likeness of Papa while an overly tall girl with a huge candy lolly sat next to him licking eagerly. Mina assumed the girl was meant to be her.
The worst of the sketch, however, she noticed last. A sweating, very tall, scarecrow-like version of Julian in tattered evening dress was in the traces where horses should be. He was pulling the lot of the company up a steep street toward St. Paul’s.
A trio of monkeys hung off the back of the wagon looking suspiciously like the three men whose suits Mina turned down at the end of her doomed Season.Quel desastre…At last. A practical use for for all those French lessons.
After Mina crumpled the page and threw it into a corner, her mother came around her writing table and enclosed her in her arms. Mina tried to remember another time from the past when she’d held her, but came up with nothing. Her mother’s hands and arms were as cold as the perfectly sculptured likeness of the goddess Aphrodite in the garden.
Lady Rumsford’s idea of further comfort was to announce in a brittle voice, “There’s nothing left but for you to attend Lady Bentworthy’s holiday house party next weekend. There will be eligible bachelors there who may not have seen the gossip sheets yet and are desperate for Rumsford’s money.”
At that, she dug her fingers hard into Mina’s arms and added, “Believe me, young lady, youwillchoose one of them. I refuse to allow you to turn into Montfort’s whore.”
She covered her face with her hands and jerked away from her mother.
“What? Did you think he’d drive up in a pumpkin with rats in the traces and make you his duchess? You’d better get used to the truth. You’re nothing but the footman’s daughter, and unless you marry the very next gentleman who proposes, you’ll end up a bitter, withered spinster living in this old pile with Rumsford and Sir Thomas like a recluse.”
For a very long time after her mother stormed from the room, Mina lay on the chaise her hysterical mother had vacated and sobbed. When her rage and sadness finally subsided, she went in search of Bridget and Lucy. She’d have to warn them to start packing for the Bentworthy house party.
* * *
Hugh Elliot observedhis old friend and business partner glower at their vingt-et-un dealer while he lost another fifty pounds to the house. The ridiculous thing was, Julianwasthe house. Well, at least half of the house. Furthermore, Hugh had never seen him so careless at the tables. It was as if he were deliberately losing to punish himself.
Walking casually by the table, Hugh suddenly grasped the duke by the sleeve of his jacket and forced him to walk away toward the rear staircase leading to their office on the floor above them.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Julian tried to shove away from Hugh, but his friend refused to dislodge his claw-like grip.
“I have need of your superior intellect to advise me on a private business matter.”
“Oh,” Julian said, and trotted obediently behind Hugh toward the private working heart of their gambling establishment.
Once Julian was splayed across one of the settees overlooking the gambling floor below through a one-way viewing mirror, Hugh poured them each a glass of Champagne before joining him.
He’d suspected Julian had been feigning the effects of drink earlier, and it appeared he was right.
Without preamble, Hugh demanded, “Now explain to me again precisely why you cannot make Lady Wilhelmina Rumsford your duchess.”
* * *
Mina peeredout the Rumsford family carriage window at the darkening skies and spied the first fluffy flakes of snow floating down. The mysterious coachman who was filling in for Horace, the family driver for as long as she could remember, had stopped to light the two front lanterns.
For some reason, the new driver wore a long, wide knit scarf with black and red stripes which nearly covered his face. Bridget had assured her he was merely protecting his ears from the extremely cold weather. The fill-in coachman was also very tall.
