“It was quite exciting to be in Rome—or shall I say Roma?” added Lady Petronilla, rolling her R enthusiastically. Lady Nilly was one of Lady Melly’s closest friends, and a surrogate aunt to Victoria. “The Carnivale was astonishing, but I daresay the King’s coronation will be even more of an event. I’ve heard he’s spending upward of forty-four thousand pounds . . . on his robe alone!”
“I never had the chance to give you my condolences personally, Lady Rockley,” said Mrs. Winkledon, wedging herself between Ladies Melly and Nilly on the sofa. “About the loss of your dear Rockley. A love match it was, was it not?” Her sharp eyes matched her sharp nose, which nearly quivered with curiosity, as if she expected Victoria to admit that she hadn’t actually loved Phillip. Not that it should matter, for few ton marriages were love matches. In fact, it was almost considered passé to love one’s spouse.
“Thank you, Mrs. Winkledon,” Victoria replied. “I do miss Phillip terribly.” That was at least the truth.
“An accident on a ship?” asked Lady Breadlington, leaning in with a smile. Her teeth, flat instead of curved across the front of her mouth, looked as though they’d been kicked in by a horse. “How terrible that he perished in the cold sea, on his way to—where was it? Spain? His body was never found, was it?”
“No, indeed,” Victoria replied. Unless you counted the pile of ash that had poofed all over her bedchamber. She kept a bit of it in a small container on her dressing table. “But we had a burial service anyway . . . and, forgive me, but I cannot recall if you were in attendance?”
“Oh, no, I’m so sorry, my dear lady, but we had already repaired to the Country by then. Grouse season.” Lady Breadlington had the grace to look abashed, which had exactly been Victoria’s intention.
Most of the twenty or so women who crowded the Grantworth parlor were not close friends of Victoria’s mother. They were here because they couldn’t stand not to be the first to see the infamous Lady Rockley, who’d married, shockingly, for love, and whose husband had died tragically little more than a month after their wedding. And who hadn’t been seen in Society since, even after her year of mourning.
“Odd,” grumbled elderly Lady Thurling, her shiny, knobby fingers closed over the top of her walking stick, “last time I saw Lord Rockley, he claimed he would attend my granddaughter’s wedding in four days, and yet two days later”—she paused to catch a wheezing breath—“sets off on a voyage without his new wife. And never comes back.” She glared at Victoria with watery blue eyes gleaming with satisfaction.
She’d said exactly what had been on everyone’s mind.
Victoria made what she hoped was a sad smile. “Yes, indeed, it was tragic. He was called away and hardly had the time to say good-bye, and I . . . well—”
“We thought at the time Victoria was in no condition,” Lady Melly interrupted with a properly sad smile of her own, “to go with him.”
There was a small chorus of sympathetic gasps, and then eyes became rounder and hands began to grasp at and pat Victoria’s, and even a nose or two—the pointiest ones—tinged a bit red on the tips.
Nothing could have been further from the truth, except that it had been Lady Melly’s baseless hope, but Victoria was delighted to have the conversation rerouted. She glanced surreptitiously at the watch pinned to Lady Thurlington’s dress. It was the only one large enough to read from across the tea table, but it was fastened upside down so that the elderly lady could look down and easily read it.
Half past three. She’d been here only an hour.
Victoria endured another twenty minutes of sly queries and sympathy coated more thickly than the iced basil cakes before the opportunity for escape presented itself.
“A turn around the park?” she said. “Why, Mr. and Miss Needleton, I should greatly enjoy that.” She was up and out of her seat before her mother could protest.
Mr. and Miss Needleton—a brother and sister—and their other companion, Miss Durfingdale, were the only visitors who had not been overly inquisitive, and were also in close proximity to Victoria’s own age of twenty.
When Lady Melly opened her mouth—surely to argue—Victoria surged forward to hug her, effectively smothering anything she might have said. Her nostrils filled with the sweet yet comforting milk rose scent her mother always wore, she whispered, “I heard Mr. Needleton has more than forty thousand a year.”
Lady Melly stiffened under her hands, but when she pulled away, Victoria saw that her mother had a most calculating look on her face as she examined the unfortunate Mr. Needleton, whose squashed nose resembled anything but his name. Even though Victoria had inherited a generous income from both her husband and aunt, Lady Melly was of the mind that one could never have too much money. “Have a lovely time, my dear.”
As Victoria left the room, the last thing she heard was, “—so glad to see her get out with young people her own age. It’s been far too long, and—” The door closed, and she was with her new companions.
Victoria would have preferred driving her own curricle alongside the Needleton carriage, enabling her to divest herself of their company as soon as was polite. But Miss Needleton was to have none of it.
She was no more than a wisp of a girl, with flyaway hair of a nondescript brown, and soulful brown eyes. In addition, she had an excuse that made it impossible for Victoria to decline her request that she ride in the carriage.
“I knew Rockley when he was a young boy,” Miss Needleton said. “Perhaps if you sit next to me, I could tell you some stories about him.”
Curiosity won out, of course. Victoria climbed into the carriage with the help of Mr. Needleton, whose pale cheeks flushed with pleasure as their gloved hands skidded against each other. Smiling at him, and settling her day dress skirts so that they didn’t infringe upon his sister’s or Miss Durfingdale’s, she realized how easy it could be for her to slip back into this world. Perhaps too easy.
If her mother had her way, Victoria would be intent on finding a new husband in order to provide Lady Melly with grandchildren (and an heir to the Grantworth estates). Instead all she could think about was what that copper ring meant to Sebastian, and whether he meant to give it to the Venators, or keep it for some other reason. And how to find Max to tell him about Briyani. And what George Starcasset was doing here in London with Sarafina. And how she felt about Sebastian.